


is that a gavel in your pocket, or...

by istajmaal



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Ballroom Dancing, Closeted Character, Jealousy, M/M, No Smut, Outing, and sappy puns about parliamentary procedure, back away slowly, if political scheming is not your thing, just innuendo about gavels, narry and zouis are brotps, passive-aggressive emails, the entire plot is about ridiculous student politics, there's a lot of scheming, they're in a debate society, uni students overly invested in classist aesthetics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:15:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istajmaal/pseuds/istajmaal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uni AU. Harry Styles didn't ask to be made president of the One Debate Union, and he certainly didn't ask for the Chairman of the Party of the Right's sass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	is that a gavel in your pocket, or...

**Author's Note:**

> harry, louis & co are members of a debate organization that seems too bizarre to actually exist. no comment.
> 
> it's an american university but they're all still sort of british. just... don't worry about it. warnings for ableist slurs because louis is kind of an asshole.
> 
> this is a work of fiction. any similarities between the events described in this work and real events, persons, or undergraduate debate organizations are coincidental, nebulous, and possibly hatched from an egg. any offense caused is a happy accident.
> 
> if you want to find me on tumblr, move to: [thepreviousquestion](http://thepreviousquestion.tumblr.com/) (if that joke made you cringe/triggered violent debate camp flashbacks, you should probably just stop right here)

If you were a member of the One Debate Union and you asked Harry Styles why he decided to run for the office of Vice President of Operations, he would tell you that he thought he had the organizational acumen to keep up with the week-to-week logistics of the 1DU and a laid-back personality that would make it easy for him to interact with the full range of prestigious guests the 1DU hosted every semester. 

If you were one of Harry's friends and asked him the same thing, he would tell you that Niall had gotten him drunk.

Harry had come home to his suite one Sunday night in November to find his roommate, Niall, and a devastatingly handsome boy sitting on the futon. They were taking swigs out of a bottle of Jack Daniels that Harry could have sworn he’d hidden away in his room.

"Harry!" Niall said, with a surprised tone that Harry thought fairly unwarranted, given that they had been living together for a year and a half now. "Harry, Harry, Harry..."

"You remembered," Harry said. "I'm touched." _Don't you have class tomorrow?_ is the kind of question he might have asked if he didn't know Niall so well. He dropped his messenger bag onto the floor and moved toward his own room. "Hi, Zayn."

Zayn Malik was a sophomore who Harry only recognized because Niall had pointed him out to him at the last 1DU debate, saying _Malik's going to be the next chair of the Party of the Left_. Harry hadn’t questioned how Niall knew that even though elections were three weeks away, because ever since Niall had started running for Chair of the Liberal Party, he seemed to know all the 1DU gossip _._

"Hi there Harry," Zayn said called from the common room. Harry didn't bother closing the door, just shucked his shirt off and threw it into the laundry basket. He toed off his boots and socks and opened the closet. The shelf where he usually kept his alcohol when he wanted it to stick around for more than a day was bare. He sighed.

"We were just discussing the future of the Left in the Union, Harry," Niall said loudly. "Join us."

Harry didn't miss how Zayn raised his eyebrow at Niall as he came back into the common room and sunk into the bean-bag chair opposite the futon. If he thought it was odd that Harry was half-naked, he didn't say anything. Or even look. Harry let himself be disappointed for a moment, then grabbed the bottle of Jack from Niall.

"You're welcome, by the way.” He lifted the bottle in salute.

"Cheers," Zayn said. 

"So," Niall said, turning back to Zayn, "Louis Tomlinson was gonna run for Speaker this term?"

"Well, I don't know." Zayn shrugged. "He was definitely thinking about it. He has the personality for it, if not the experience. But then--I don't know, something shifted in his party, and now he's going to be Chairman, I guess."

"Louis Tomlinson, Chairman of the Party of the Right." Niall exhaled. "I can see that. Who'll be Speaker, then?"

"Liam Payne's the only other one who's hacking for it right now," Zayn said.

"The Chairman of the Feds?" Harry had technically been in the 1DU since he joined the Liberal Party as a freshman, but even he sometimes had a difficult time keeping the seven parties straight, especially all the conservative ones.

"That's the one," Zayn said. "He seems like a sweet kid, sort of earnest. I hope being on e-board doesn't tear him apart."

Niall laughed. "So Payne's going out for Speaker," he said, "Grimshaw for President, of course--LeighAnne from your party's running for Vice President of Communications. So the only major office that's still open is Vice President of Operations.”

"Yeah," Zayn said, his eyes flickering from Niall to Harry. "It's just one of those terms where no one seems to want to step forward."

Harry could hear the change in Niall's tone, the way it became a bit more strained. "Shame," he said. "It's such an, er, interesting position, isn't it?"

"It's a lot of work," Zayn said, moving his gaze back from Harry to Niall, "but it involves working with the guest speakers a lot, and most of them are pretty famous, so. That's cool."

"Can't believe nobody would want to do that," Harry said.

"Yeah," Niall said slowly, looking at Harry. "'specially if the election was gonna be uncontested. They'd only have to meet with a dozen or so people beforehand, and make it through Inquisition." 

"It's such an important job." Harry didn't know Zayn that well but he was certain that he didn’t normally speak with such a lilting voice. "I wish someone we knew, someone we trust would step up."

"Someone organized," Niall agreed. "Like, someone who sorts his laundry. And picks up after himself. And is the best roommate ever."

And here's the thing: Harry had always been a people-pleaser. He liked to take care of people. He was the one who cooked for their entire twelve-person suite last year before the fire marshall had taken away their camping stove. He was the one who let his friends drink away all his alcohol and then walked them home when they were too drunk to see straight. Niall knew that about him, and so this really wasn't fair.

"So," Harry said, "what does the vice president of operations do, exactly?"

Niall let out a whoop. "That means you'll run, yeah?"

Zayn didn't seem _quite_ as enthusiastic about Harry's prospective campaign as Niall did--he even rolled his eyes when Niall punched Harry in the shoulder amicably--but he still looked considerably pleased, though a little surprised. Harry probably should have taken that as a sign that this would be a terrible idea.

###

The One Debate Union was founded in 1933 in order to "create a space for disciplined intellectual discourse on the most pressing political issues of the moment," according to its founding mission statement. It was an umbrella organization presently consisting of seven parties: the Liberal Party (the Libs), the Party of the Left (the PoL), the Independent Party (the IP), the Federalist Party (the Feds), the Conservative Party (the Cons), the Tory Party (the Tories), and the Party of the Right (the PoR). Each of the parties met for its own debate or discussion weekly, and all seven parties joined together once a week for a few hours of "rigorous debate, supplemented by influential guests whose expertise adds clarity and whose ties to the real world of politics increase the stakes of the debate."

Harry did not know most of this until he read it on the website (of which he would soon be nominally in charge). Harry joined the 1DU mostly by accident—Niall had dragged him to a few Liberal Party discussions in the first weeks of their freshman year, and Harry was considering himself a Lib before he even realized that that meant being a member of the 1DU.

"I guess I haven't thought that much about the 1DU," Harry said after one of those first few discussions, sitting cross-legged on a leather couch and trying not to drip pizza grease on himself as members of the Liberal Party and their freshman recruits milled around after a discussion. "I mean, you guys seem pretty normal and everything... but I've heard that most everyone is a crazy libertarian? And something about being banned from campus?"

"Don't believe everything you hear, Harry," an upperclassman said, patting him on the shoulder. "And most of that stuff is about the Party of the Right, anyway. I mean, personally I think anyone on the Right is bonkers, but they're a whole new level of crazy, man."

Harry didn't know anything about the Party of the Right then except that a cute boy with blue eyes had once shown up at his door in the second week of freshman year and asked him if he was interested in philosophy. Harry had scratched his head and felt his face go hot, especially when he saw _The Party of the Right_ emblazoned in old-fashioned font on the bright blue piece of paper the cute boy was trying to give him, and said, "I don't, um, maybe, I'll just take this then," and shut the door. 

"Bonkers," Harry agreed. "Naturally." 

Given how aggressively the other parties recruited and how hard it was for Harry to turn people down, he spent most of the next year and a half trying to avoid unnecessary encounters with other parties. By the time he ran for 1DU office a year and a half later, he had barely branched outside of his own party's weekly discussions, other than going to a few Party of the Left debates every now and then. When he decided to run for VPO, though, Niall insisted that even if he was running uncontested, he really needed to start getting comfortable with the other parties.

In a way, it was sort of comforting to discover that he had made the right choice in the Libs after all. In another, it was fucking terrifying to start going to other parties' debates, because half of them were _insane_. In the first week, he heard speeches about the urgent need to revive feudalism, the virtues of sobriety, and… something about Kierkegaard. (And Kant. Hegel? Harry never took philosophy.) One apparently earnest defense of infanticide actually made Harry leave the room. There was a certain drawling, theatrical cadence to the speeches--one that he wasn’t unfamiliar with, as it made a fairly frequent appearance at 1DU debates as well--that rang in his ears for days and made him want to punch his own face. On a couple of occasions, he saw actual, literal swords drawn. 

After that nonsense, he found himself almost looking forward to the one-on-one meeting process of running for office (they called it "hacking" and how was Harry _not_ supposed to imagine being cut into little pieces with one of those swords, _honestly_?). True to his expectations, the meetings with former vice presidents were full of mostly-helpful advice ("don't run" being either the most or the least helpful advice, bestowed by a weary-looking senior). The meetings with other people running for office that term were also painless. Harry had hooked up with Nick Grimshaw, the IP junior who was running for president, a few times when he was a freshman and Nick was a recently-out sophomore, but they were refreshingly not awkward about it. The Speaker candidate, the current Federalist Party Chairman Liam Payne, seemed maybe a little over-serious about this whole thing, but he was nice enough. Harry thought he might even enjoy working with some of these people. 

It was mostly just hacking with the future chairs and chairmen of the seven parties that was absolute shite.

For one thing, some of the parties were having contested races for Chairman, which meant no one from the Conservative Party knew who to ask Harry to hack with, and he had to have an awkward three-person meeting with the two Independent Party juniors running for Chairman, Eleanor and Danielle, who both spent the whole hour and a half trying to prove that they knew more about what the VPO was supposed to do than the other did. The next Federalist Chairman, a shy sophomore, was easier, asking a handful of challenging questions that he had written on a piece of paper and spending the rest of the time looking into his cereal. Zayn was tough on him, a mix of specific job-related questions and theoretical questions about the kind of space the Union should be--Harry felt like he could have done better at that one, but Zayn respected him so that was all right.

The worst meeting by far was with the future Chairman of the Party of the Right.

First of all, Louis Tomlinson insisted that he didn’t have any free time to meet other than over breakfast at eight in the morning, which would be rude enough even if he hadn’t shown up ten minutes late (ten minutes during which Harry drank two and a half cups of coffee and developed a spiritual kinship with dining hall oatmeal).

“There you are,” the future Chairman said as he put his books down on the table across from Harry. Harry looked up at him blearily. “I’m going to get food. I’m not really interested in hearing about your five-pronged plan to revitalize the Union or whatever, so try to think of something actually interesting to say before I come back.”

Harry’s plan to revitalize the Union had approximately zero prongs. If he thought that might endear him to Louis, he was wrong.

“So you’re basically running because you enjoy being a cog in the faceless bureaucratic machine,” Louis said after Harry gave him a spiel about the strengths and weaknesses of his predecessor. “And because it’s a good CV line.”

“Is there a problem with that?” If Harry wasn’t still so sleepy it might have come out acidic.

Louis paused. Something in his eyes shifted and Harry felt for a minute that Louis was actually looking at him before he shrugged and resumed his previous demeanor. “I was just hoping for something more interesting, Harold.”

“That’s not my name,” Harry said automatically.

“Well, God willing, after tomorrow night ‘Louis’ won’t be my name for a while, either.” Louis stood, gathered his books under one arm, and balanced his mug on his plate in the other hand. “You’ll be calling me Mister Chairman soon. Thought it best to get the pleasantries out of the way now. See you at Inquisition, Harold.” And then he just left.

It was odd, how familiarly (if condescendingly) Louis addressed him, given that they had barely ever spoken. (Harry was pretty sure he was the boy who had given him that PoR flyer last year, but he didn’t feel chummy enough with him to bring it up.) Almost like they were distant relatives, by virtue of belonging to the same organization. If the 1DU was a family, it was the most dysfunctional one Harry had ever encountered.

###

So yeah, hacking was bad. Inquisition was hell.

Harry knew going in that parading around seven parties’ floors in one night was not going to be easy. But after two weeks of hacking, Harry was feeling pretty confident in his knowledge of the office he was running for and his ability to do it well. But the questions the other parties threw at him had almost nothing to do with being VPO. Niall had told Harry that Inquisition, at least for candidates in uncontested races, was more about jumping through hoops to amuse the elders of the various parties rather than proving he was actually qualified to hold Union office, but that didn’t make it any easier when he was standing facing the wall with a pirate hat on his head answering rapid-fire dichotomies about philosophers whose work he’d never read. Or when he was told to name the religious affiliations of every person in the room (five out of eight of whom he was pretty sure he had never seen at a 1DU debate before) only to be met with hissing when he got the answers wrong. It was almost a relief when the worst thing the Tories did was make him eat some disgusting cheese. The sophomore who was walking Harry between the different floors gave him Skittles and encouraging words after each round, but by the time he finished the second-to-last floor he felt like the slightest crack in the sidewalk might cause him to collapse and he wasn’t confident in his ability to make himself get up again. 

"That was the least terrifying floor so far," Harry said as he left the Party of the Left floor. Zayn had rushed out after Harry left to told him he had done really well. "Malik's a nice bloke."

"And taken, Harry, don't get any ideas," his walker ribbed. "He's got a girlfriend at Smith, it's basically the only thing he ever talks about other than philosophy."

"Hey, I wasn't," Harry said. "Just because I'm bisexual doesn't mean I can't appreciate when someone is... nice."

Which is true, but--yeah, Harry is maybe a little disappointed that Zayn wasn't going to be a little more than a nice guy to him. Maybe it was definitely insane that he was thinking about that while going through the most bizarre hazing ritual he had ever encountered.

"A guy with a face like that? All right, whatever you say. PoR is last," she said, straightening his bow tie. "You've got all your answers ready, I saw you beast that rehearsal round with Niall, so you're going to be great. And... well, if you're not, it'll be over in 45 minutes. And you know they can't throw lit cigarettes at you, because I'll be there."

Harry blinked. “Wait, is that something--“

Harry didn’t have time to figure out if that was something he actually should maybe worry about. They had reached the cemetery gates where they had been told to wait. Some guy in a suit suddenly stormed past them and Harry's walker prodded him, saying, " _move_!"

They followed the guy in the suit up to a classroom building (which, shouldn't those be locked at one in the morning?), and up the stairs to the top floor. He walked so briskly Harry started to trip over himself trying to keep up.

Harry had to admit the classroom they eventually reached made an impressive scene. Lit only by moonlight and a few sparse candles on the floor, dark figures hovered imposingly on the outskirts of the circle, the outlines of the chairman and the secretary seated at the front.

Harry only had seconds to take in the scene before a stern voice told him to stand straight up facing out in the circle, but that was long enough to get a look at Louis in the Chairman’s seat. He was wearing a light gray suit, a ridiculous medal around his neck, holding a gavel lazily in his left hand. His eyes flickered with drunkenness--or possibly candlelight. Just as Harry was starting to appreciate what the lighting did for the Chairman's artfully disheveled hair, somebody manhandled him a hundred and eighty degrees, forcing him to face the well-stocked bar instead. He _hated_ the POR.

The questions themselves were about as bad as he’d expected. The actual job merited only a few dichotomies that he didn’t get to elaborate on. His choice of Allen Ginsburg as one of his three most influential thinkers, on the other hand, earned rapid-fire mockery thinly disguised as questions. Each time he stumbled over an answer, the assembled POR members howled with laughter. The chortles of the Chairman behind him rang particularly heavy in his stomach. Harry fled as soon as he was dismissed.

The Chairman certainly did not follow him out of the room to tell Harry that he had done fine, because Louis Tomlinson was _not_ a nice guy. Harry let himself be angry about that for a few minutes while his walker steered him back to the Libs for delibs.

###

Harry was a lot more nervous about the endorsement sheets than he should have been. He was running an uncontested race; he didn't actually need to worry about how many parties endorsed him.

Niall, of course, had written him a glowing endorsement. The PoL and IP had endorsed him as well, though with considerably less enthusiasm. The Feds' and Tories' endorsement sheets both read like abstract poetry, so Harry couldn't really tell what they thought of him, but he must have charmed them both because they endorsed him too. And the Cons barely endorsed anyone they didn't have to, Niall assured him, so he should be proud of how well he did.

So when the Party of the Right endorsed Allen Ginsberg for the office of Vice President of Operations, it really shouldn't have bothered him, and when he accepted the office to cheers later that night, while Nick Grimshaw patted him on the back and said _guess that means we’ll be partners in crime,_ he really shouldn't have focused on the marked lack of applause from a certain corner of the room. But if he did, it definitely had nothing to do with the way his face felt hot when the Chairman of the PoR studied him impassively. Nothing at all.

###

At the end of his first debate as VPO, Harry was more exhausted than he'd ever been. It might have been worth it. He had personally greeted their guest that week at the train station. She was a senator who Harry soon found had a much better handle on British politics than most Americans, and they spent the afternoon chatting about the upcoming Parliamentary elections. Harry accompanied her on a tour of campus and shuttled her around to interviews with the campus paper and a local paper as well. By the time they finished up dinner with a crowd of 1DU political science majors and Harry guided her to the lecture hall where the debate would be held, Harry was starting to think he might actually enjoy his job. 

Nick gave him a goofy heads-up as he entered the debate room with the senator. Harry grinned. Nick introduced himself to the senator and after she sat down to go over her speech for a few minutes, Nick tugged Harry to the off-side of the stage.

"You didn't respond to any of my text messages," Nick said. "I thought you might have lost her."

"I didn't respond because I was _busy_ with her, Mr. President," Harry said, flicking Nick's forehead where his fringe was collapsing a bit into his eyes. "You'd think you didn't have your own presidential duties to keep up with."

"Not really," Nick said, shrugging. "Mostly I just get blamed if someone else cocks things up. 's why I'm keeping tabs on you, Mr. Vice President."

Something about the way Nick was teasing made Harry think that might not have been the only reason Nick was keeping tabs on him, but before he could think of a good retort about cocks, Liam Payne was tapping Nick on the shoulder with his gavel and saying, “Sit down, folks, it's 7:28 and I am gaveling us in on time, I swear."

It was the first debate of the second semester, which meant that each of the Chairs and Chairmen of the seven parties was to give a speech about the virtues his or her party. Most of the speeches were pretty similar semester to semester, especially in the spring, when the chances of new recruiting any new freshmen were slim, so after thunderously applauding when Niall gave the speech for the Libs, Harry let himself sink into his seat and play around with his phone, figuring he had put in quite enough effort for the day (and there would still be an hour or so of a pizza party with the senator after the debate before Harry would be able to relax again). He deserved the break, he figured, and nobody seemed to be taking any notice of him, anyway.

### 

"I'm just saying," the Chairman said, adjusting his fringe, "that it makes us look a bit _juvenile_ as an organization when members of the executive board are playing Candy Crush through half of the debate. As if we don't take the intellectual challenge of the debate seriously."

Harry could barely believe what he was hearing. Wasn’t it bad enough that he was forced to come sit in these executive board meetings for an hour a week? In the past two meetings, nothing had happened that made Harry feel like he wouldn't have been better off spending the hour trimming his pubes. It was irritating enough to listen to the Chairman of the POR wax philosophical about poster placement and complain about how his party didn't find any of the guests booked for the semester “exciting." Did Louis Tomlinson _really_ have to insult him directly in front of a handful of his friends and a smattering of people who he barely knew but was theoretically engaged in a professional relationship with?

“That’s, uh,” Nick said, looking between Harry and Louis apologetically, “well. I can see the merit in what you’re saying, Mr. Chairman. Let it be known from here on out,” he continues, surveying the faces crowded on rickety wooden stools around the sole table in the 1DU office, “that officers are expected to intellectually engage in the debate at hand.” He tapped his gavel on the table and it shook. “All right? Moving on.”

Harry stared down at the table, his cheeks burning. The conversation moved on to media coverage of the debate. Harry glanced up and saw Louis looking at him with a smug smile. The Chairman of the Tories, Taylor something, was sitting next to him texting, but Louis didn’t look twice at her. Harry wanted to kick him under the table, but he probably would have hit Nick instead.

"I hate the PoR," Harry muttered to Niall when they left the office half an hour later.

"Shower of cunts," Niall said, nodding. He looked over his shoulder at where the Chairman was talking Nick’s ear off. “Dinner?"

###

Three weeks later, Harry's phone went off in his Monday afternoon seminar. His face went bright red as the whole class turned to him while he rushed to snap the volume off. The professor made a comment about attentiveness that Harry couldn't gauge the sharpness of because his ears were pounding. As he rejected Nick Grimshaw's call, Harry wondered if he should share his class schedule with Nick so that he would know when not to bother him with 1DU business, or if the very fact that he was considering doing so meant that his efforts to keep the 1DU from invading certain parts of his life had already failed.

When he got out of class, he had three more missed calls and three texts from Nick. 

_Nick Grimshaw 13:34_

_pick up_

 

_Nick Grimshaw 13:35_

_pick up_

 

_Nick Grimshaw 14:13_

_NOT KIDDING HAROLD PICK UP!!!_

 

The last text was only a few minutes old, so Harry responded with _some of us have class and things, not ur slave mate_ , as he readjusted his messenger bag on his shoulders and headed to the coffee shop down the street. His phone was ringing in under a minute.

"Where are you?" Nick said, not even giving Harry shit for his cheeky reply, and suddenly Harry was a little worried.

"Publick Cup," Harry said, frowning. "Or I will be, in a moment. Is everything--?"

"I'll meet you there in five," Nick said, and hung up.

Harry immediately opened his email, expecting an urgent last-minute message from the Washington Post columnist who would be the 1DU guest for that week. Nothing. Just as Harry settled down in the window table of the coffee shop, Nick Grimshaw came in and sat across from him. He had the heaviest bags under his eyes that Harry had ever seen.

"What's up?" Harry said. He wished he had something in his hands to fiddle with as Nick ran his fingers through his hair and swallowed visibly.

"I'm kind of getting kicked out of uni."

### 

Harry read the 1DU constitution three times over. _If the President is incapacitated or otherwise removed from office, the Vice President of Operations shall become president._  

"This is _sick_ , Harry!" Niall said. "A Lib hasn't been president in ages. Well, two years, anyway."

"I don't want it," Harry said. "Christ, I didn't even want the job I ran for, but at least that lets me hang out with famous people every week. I don't _want_ this, Niall."

"It's yours, Harry," Niall said, shrugging. "Hell of a resume line to waste, too. _President of largest and best-endowed student organization on campus_."

Harry couldn't stop himself from snorting. "Think the football team might have us beat there."

"That's not what I've heard." Niall winked and Harry couldn't hate him, even when this was _all_ his fault.

"I'd love to do my own research," Harry said, "but it looks like I'm not going to have any bloody _time_. Fuck Nick Grimshaw, honestly. How do you even get to the point where you're selling that many drugs if you're so shit at it that you get caught?" Harry threw the print-out of the 1DU constitution onto the floor of their common room.

“Dunno mate,” Niall said, his grin not dampening, “but I wouldn't encourage you to research that."

###

“So.” Harry sat down at the head of the table in the 1DU office and promptly dropped his gavel on the floor. All of the relevant officers and party representatives had assembled, but they were talking amongst themselves and didn’t pay much attention to Harry. He considered dashing out of the room.

Liam was the only one who seemed to notice Harry’s desperation. “You should gavel us in,” he said, a look of pity on his face that Harry would find insulting if it weren’t so welcome. Harry swallowed and nodded, tapping the gavel on the table twice.

“Guys!” Liam shouted, as no one seemed to notice. The room fell silent and everyone turned to where Harry and Liam were seated at the head of the table. Harry cleared his throat and gaveled down again, a little harder this time.

“So,” he said again. “Uh, hi.” Someone laughed and Harry wondered how red his face looked. “You, uh, all got Nick’s email or you wouldn’t be here, so I guess I don’t really need to explain… that.” How had Harry been involved in a debate organization for nearly two years without getting over his fear of public speaking? Honestly, he felt like he was sweating through the collar of his shirt. “Given that Nick has been banned from campus, I’ll be serving as President immediately, because. Well. Because of that.” Harry winced and looked down to the other end of the table where Niall and Zayn were smiling at him encouragingly so that he didn’t just shut up and walk out.

Unfortunately, the Chairman of the Party of the Right was sitting right next to Zayn and looked altogether pleased that Harry was so flustered. Like he was being proven right about something. Harry accidentally knocked the gavel into the table hard as he swirled it around his fingers and resolved to prove Louis Tomlinson _wrong._  

“Anyway,” he said, his voice getting a little stronger as he moved to survey the faces of people who didn’t irrationally hate him, “there's nothing in the constitution that explains the order of succession for VPO in this circumstance, which is—a problem. I’ve talked to Nick about it and he seems to think the best way to deal with this is for me to continue serving as VPO until Rules Comm can appoint a replacement, hopefully later this week.”

"Don't you think that could create a conflict of interest?" 

The Chairman didn’t raise his hand before speaking. Harry bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from scolding him for it.

"What, between Harry and himself?" Niall snickered.

"He's got a point there," Zayn said.

"There might be precedent for a Rules Comm appointment," Liam said suddenly. He looked at Harry apologetically, then Harry remembered that he was supposed to be calling on people. _Right_. "Though how to narrow a list of candidates, I don't know."

"Rules Comm being the chairs and chairmen," Harry said as a clarification, feeling in control of the situation. He looked up at the room and realized immediately that no one had needed that clarification. Taylor Swift looked up from her texting long enough to raise her eyebrows and smile at him like he was a five-year-old. 

"...right," Harry said. He knocked the gavel against his knee nervously. “I can send out an email to the whole membership and ask people interested to contact me, and then we'll get Rules Comm to appoint someone on Sunday. In the meantime... I'll take care of most of the logistics for next week."

"I think we should hold a special election," the Chairman of the POR said.

There was silence for a beat. Harry looked at the Chairman like he had grown a second head. Louis looked back at him with a serene smirk.

"That's ridiculous," Ben Winston ( _the Chairman of the Conservative Party_ , Harry reminded himself) said. "That'll take ages, and we _need_ someone to be looking out for the logistics."

"Harry can do it," the Chairman of the Party of the Right said, not taking his eyes off Harry. He quirked an eyebrow. "Can't he? Since there’s no conflict of interest.”

"That's a totally unreasonable expectation," Ben said. Liam nudged Harry with his foot and he remembered again that he was supposed to be running this meeting.

"Right, Ben, thank you for your input," Harry said as he tried to gather his thoughts.

For what felt like already the fortieth time in the course of this meeting, Harry wondered what he had said wrong as Ben's eyes narrowed, Zayn and the Chairman of the PoR both smirked, and Niall bit his lip, eyes dancing with laughter. The Chairman of the Federalist Party, whose name Harry still couldn't remember, continued staring down at the same spot on the table. Taylor was angling her phone like she was trying to send a Snapchat of herself rolling her eyes.

" _Mister Chairman_ ," Liam whispered in Harry's ear. "You don't call the Chairmen of the Cons or the PoR by their names."

"Mister Chairman," Harry said. "Right." For once he felt a deep kinship with Taylor. He licked his lips and continued. "Let's have a vote on it. All in favor of calling for a special election, please raise your hands."

Louis and the treasurer (a POR sophomore) raised their hands.

"And all in favor of a RulesComm appointment this Sunday."

Everyone else raised their hands, though Ben looked a little reluctant to. 

"Fantastic," Harry said. Liam gave him a nudge and looked down significantly at the gavel in his hand. Harry smashed it on the table a bit more enthusiastically than necessary, and decided it was a feeling he could get used to. "That's all on the agenda for today. Everyone, please encourage anyone interested in running for VPO to contact me right away. It's a demanding office but I'm sure I can get the new guy up to speed. I'd also like to keep up Nick's policy of meeting with the chairs and chairmen biweekly to keep communication lines open, so if you'd all please respond to the email I sent you this morning with a time you could meet regularly, I'd really appreciate it. Meeting adjourned."

Harry banged the gavel again, pleased with the loud sound and comforted that if every subsequent meeting went that poorly, he could always use it to bash someone's skull in.

Usually Harry and Niall were the first people to dash out of the room after these things were over, but Harry realized that might seem a bit unprofessional now. As everyone stirred from their seats, Liam muttered in Harry's ear, "you did good,” and clapped him on the shoulder.

"You should run these things instead of me," Harry said, hoping it was quiet enough that the Chairman of the PoR wouldn't overhear him. He was talking to Ben, who Harry could see was still visibly displeased.

"Now where would the fun in that be?" Liam said. He winked. "Do you want to get dinner after this, talk through some things? Or not."

“’Not’ sounds good," Harry said. He tore his eyes away from where he was sure Louis Tomlinson was badmouthing him. "Not talking that is, dinner sounds great. Join me and Niall?"

Liam nodded. He wandered off to where the chairman of his party was still staring down at the table, shuffling through some kind of notebook. Most everyone else had left, and Niall and Zayn were chatting amicably by the door, obviously waiting for him.

"You should know I'm a busy man." Harry almost jumped out of his skin. "Got a party to run and all." The Chairman of the PoR was standing with his hands in the pockets of his ( _well-fitted_ , Harry thought before he stopped himself) trousers while Harry hiked his messenger bag over his shoulder. Suddenly he found it odd that Louis never seemed to be carrying anything more than a book or two. 

"I'm not going to force you to meet with me if you don't want to," Harry said. "Just want to make myself available." Louis raised his eyebrows and Harry _did_ roll his eyes that time as Louis let the silence go on a bit too long. "For complaints," Harry said. "Or praise, you know, I'm not picky."

"Well, I plan to make good use of your availability, then," Louis said, and his eyebrows still hadn't gone done. "I made Nick Grimshaw meet with me weekly, you know. My party likes me to make their concerns known. But I'm rarely free before midnight, so."

"You're rarely free before midnight," Harry repeated, furrowing his brow. Louis clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Knew you'd understand, mate. You seem so flexible." And then--Harry _might_ have mistaken it, but he was pretty sure Louis was checking him out for a second (or, more probably, judging him for the wrinkles in his khakis, Harry thought, and wished Niall hadn't broken his iron in that drunken ping-pong game). "How about midnight Sundays on the library steps? That was when I usually met Nick."

Harry had no idea whether or not to believe that. "Um," he said. Sunday nights were usually when he got the bulk of his homework done.

"Fantastic," Louis said, "see you tonight." Before Harry could object, he turned to Eleanor, who had been hovering nearby checking her phone, and laced his arm through hers (wow, were they dating? Harry mentally kicked himself for even entertaining the thought that Louis might have been checking him out). They whisked by Niall, Zayn, and Liam, who had joined the other two gathered at the door, without so much as looking at them. Niall made a gagging gesture as soon as they were gone. Harry liked Niall a lot. 

"Right git," Niall said. "What did he want?" Zayn shifted uncomfortably as he watched the door swing shut behind Louis.

"Too good to answer his email like a normal person," Harry said, shrugging. "I have to meet with him later tonight. Can I quit now?"

"If you do the Vice President of Communications becomes President," Liam said. "LeighAnne hasn't even shown up to an e-board meeting in ages. You should probably look into that, Harry."

"So much for communications," Zayn said. Niall laughed, Liam grinned shortly, and as they headed out to the nearest dining hall, Harry made a mental note to change his trousers before he went to meet Louis.

###

Harry got to the library at 11:54. Even though he knew he was early, as he watched the minutes ticked towards midnight on his phone, he half-expected the Chairman not to show up. Like it was some kind of joke. Honestly, Harry had spent a lot of time in the past few weeks feeling like the butt of a joke. At 12:02, though, Louis Tomlinson appeared seemingly out of nowhere while Harry was scrolling through the contacts on his phone. He was still wearing the suit he’d had on at e-board (who wears a suit around all day on a college campus, _honestly_ ) complete with the stupid medallion around his neck. He didn’t say anything, just jerked his head to the right when he was sure Harry was looking at him to get him to follow him.

Louis led them to a small side entrance to the library Harry had never noticed before. He fished a key out of his pocket, fiddled with the door a moment, and pushed it open. Harry couldn’t help but be impressed, even if he wasn’t 100% sure what he was being impressed by. Louis quirked an eyebrow as he held the door open behind him.

“Coming?” he asked. Harry shrugged, shoved his hands into the pockets of his skinny jeans and followed Louis through the door.

Louis led them through a series of offices lit with dim fluorescent light to a set of stairs. "Breaking and entering," Harry said under his breath as Louis gave the door to the stairwell a bit of a few shoves with his shoulders. He still felt a bit like he was the subject of a joke.

Louis rolled his eyes. The door finally gave way, and he didn't lose his balance for a second. "Not breaking and entering if you have a key," he said, and turned to climb the stairs.

Harry lost count around the twelfth flight of stairs. Neither of them said a word until they came to a landing, where Louis dug around in his pocket again for a moment before pulling out another key and suddenly they were standing on the roof of the library, wow. Harry probably should have figured out that that was what was happening a while ago.

The only light came from the almost-full moon reflecting on the shine of the half-melted snow. The roof itself was fairly uninteresting, but there was stone fencing around most of the ledge with intricate gargoyle carvings, their noses dotted with little heaps of snow. Louis moved towards the edge and Harry followed a little behind. They were standing maybe sixty feet above the steps where Harry had been waiting fifteen minutes ago. Harry almost forgot how much he hated Louis Tomlinson as he admired how silvery and delicate the trees looked from up here, how the skyscrapers of downtown towered over the campus in a way he had never noticed because his eyes were usually trained at ground level.

 _Almost_ forgot. 

"You're not going to throw me off, are you?" Harry said, after a minute or so of silence. "LeighAnne would have to take over the Union and I still don't think you'd get your special election."

The Chairman looked like he might laugh for a moment before he turned his back to the scenery in front of them, leaning against the railing in a way that would have made Harry tut disapprovingly if he were his mother. “My party has a lot of concerns about you, Styles,” he said. He ran his thumb over the medallion hanging against his breast and Harry let himself think about pushing him over for half a second.

"Apart from my literary taste, you mean?" he said. "Because that much I had gathered."

"You're unprofessional," Louis continued. Harry shook his head lightly and kept his eyes trained on the bell tower of his dorm building in the distance. “Your dress is unprofessional, your conduct at Union has been embarrassing for those of us who would like the guests to think we’re more than just a bunch of college kids.”

“We _are_ a bunch of college kids,” Harry said, but Louis acted like he didn’t hear him at all.

“You were _dreadful_ on my party's floor at Inquisition, which means you're either an idiot or didn't think to prepare, neither of which are particularly attractive qualities in a president.”

“Am I supposed to respond to any of this?” Harry tore his eyes off the horizon and fixed them on Louis with a skeptical expression. “Or are you just going to keep insulting me? Inquiring minds want to know.”

The Chairman regarded Harry quietly for a minute before shaking his head slowly. “Your jeans have fucking _holes_ in the knees,” he said. “What the fuck, Harry Styles?”

Harry frowned. “I like these jeans,” he said. He fingered the loose threads hanging off his knees absentmindedly. “Some people don’t need to wear suit jackets all the time in order to take themselves seriously, you know.”

Louis huffed. “I’m still waiting on evidence that you take _any_ of this seriously.” 

Okay. All right. This had almost actually been interesting for a while but Harry had a reading response due in eight hours that he hadn’t done the reading for yet and he didn’t have to deal with this. “I take myself seriously enough to know that this is bullshit,” he said. He backed away from the ledge a bit, digging his hands back into his pockets again.

“But you’re still here,” Louis said. “What does that say about you?”

Harry stared at him and shook his head. “If you have anything you actually want to talk about,” he said, “come find me.”

Neither of the locked doors he passed through on his way down from the roof were fully closed, and Harry took that as a sign that his subconscious mind knew the whole time that he would need an escape route from Louis Tomlinson.

###

The regular meetings with the Chairs and Chairmen were actually way less of a hassle than Harry had expected them to be. With Zayn it was all friendly, casual chatter about the intellectual threads developing between the debates this semester; with Eleanor it was mostly a recitation of famous Independent Party alumni who should really be invited to the 1DU as guests; with Niall it was another excuse for pizza and FIFA in their common room. Harry was most worried about keeping up with the internecine politics of the parties on the Right, but Ben was cordial (if a bit short) with him, and the Chairman of the Feds (Marcel, Harry learned eventually) was nearly as reserved as he was at e-board, keeping the meetings short and sweet. His first meeting with the Chairman of the Tories was characterized by a lot of awkward silence and when Harry asked whether the Tories had any particular concerns about the direction the Union was going in, Taylor had said, "you know, how about I just come to you if we do," and they hadn't met again.

Louis, though, kept on meeting him every week, Sunday at midnight on the library steps. The second week Harry considered not showing up, but Louis had insisted on it after e-board (meaning he had said “same time and place” and Harry didn’t have it in him to say no). It was almost odd, because for all his insistence that his party had a lot of Concerns About Harry, the things he wanted to talk about were almost never things that Harry had any control over. What was even odder was that Harry didn't find himself minding that too terribly much.

"The speech you gave on our floor last week wasn't total shit," Louis said one week. They were sitting under a bronze statue of a rich man on the quad. He hadn’t taken Harry back to the library roof since that first week. "You're not a total idiot, Styles."

Harry snorted and swung his legs back and forth. The ledge they were seated on was tall enough that Louis couldn’t touch the ground with his feet, and Harry caught himself thinking that that was sort of precious before he remembered Louis was the Chairman of the Party of the Right.

“I’m so pleased you noticed,” Harry said. "Think that's what I'll have written on my tombstone."

"I'll remember that if this ACLU guy doesn't show up this week, like you said he mightn't," Louis said. "Eleanor's a bit of a priss about logistics, she might strangle you."

Harry exhaled heavily. He’d forgotten about that not-so-tiny problem he’d been dealing with all day for a minute. And Eleanor. He'd been forgetting about Eleanor a lot lately, while he was talking to Louis. “Good to know someone will be looking out for me, anyway."

Louis hummed and leaned his back against the leg of the statue. They were silent for a moment. Their shoulders were only a few inches apart. 

“What do you believe in, anyway?” 

"Hmm?" Harry quirked an eyebrow and shifted a fraction of an inch away from Louis on the ledge.

Louis shrugged. “It's just--you know, there are two types of people who hang around the 1DU: ideologues who get off on the intellectual theater and political hacks who get off on all the scheming." 

“And you're asking me what I get off on?" Harry said, raising an eyebrow. 

Harry didn't expect the genuineness of the laugh that followed (or the way it made him drum his fingers on the cold marble beneath them while smiling anxiously). "I guess I am," Louis said.

Harry shrugged. "I just believe in being decent to people," he said. "And don't ask me to give a definition of 'decency' because it's contextual, you know? A lot of people in the Libs were decent to me and I wanted to be decent back to them and so here I am. Arguing for, like. Decency." 

"So the foundation of your political morality is not being an asshole?"

"Yep." Harry paused. "Is that so ridiculous, really? I mean, what's yours?" For all the blustering Louis has done about e-board about the necessity of the Union forcing its members to develop concrete ideologies, Harry realized he didn’t know much about what Louis believed in other than the Party of the Right.

Louis was quiet for a second before he chortled. “Not that,” he said.

Harry tried to pull his knees up to his chest and lost his balance, nearly knocking both of them to the ground. Louis didn’t stop laughing for a while.

###

"Don't go, Harry!" Niall said. "Please? Liam's coming over in a bit and bringing pizza."

"Sorry, Nialler," Harry said. "Got to go listen to the Party of the Right's list of complaints about everything I've done wrong this week."

Harry had maybe started avoiding referring to Louis by name, because he would either have to call him "The Chairman," "Tomlinson," or just "Louis" and saying any of those things in front of other people felt like it would be too intimate, too obvious. Even though there wasn't anything to be obvious _about_ , which Harry was all to conscious of, but... Well. Louis hadn’t insulted Harry once at e-board that day, directly or indirectly, even while they discussed how it was maybe a problem that LeighAnne hadn’t come to a single meeting all term. Harry was the president, he was in charge of communicating with his officers and keeping them on task, so it really was kind of his fault. But Louis hadn’t said anything.

"Still can't believe he makes you meet with him at this time of night," Niall said, furrowing his brow. 

"So _that's_ where Louis goes Sunday nights?" Zayn said. Zayn had started hanging out in their common room lately, just because, and Harry had stopped thinking about him when he was wanking because it was just weird. “Christ, the way he's all secretive about it, I thought he might be going to some bondage club or something."

"Ahaha," Harry said, his throat feeling tight. "He's--what? Secretive? You?"

"I think what Harry is trying to say," Niall said, with obvious amusement, "is, 'why would you be wondering about Louis Tomlinson's whereabouts on a Sunday night?'"

Harry nodded. Zayn frowned. "We're roommates," he said. "Didn't you know?"

####

"I had no _idea_ you lived with Zayn," Harry said as he got to the library steps, where Louis was leaning against a railing and texting. He was wearing dark wash jeans and a striped shirt for once instead of a suit, which Harry stopped himself from remarking on. "That is--honestly I cannot even see it."

Louis raised an eyebrow. "Zayn's been my best mate for three years," he said.

"But you're like," Harry said. He gestured from Louis to the library, as if that were a coherent statement. “You're like opposites. He's the Party of the _Left_ , you're the Party of the _Right_ , he's all taciturn and doesn't give a shit and you're--?" 

"An asshole with an opinion on absolutely everything?"

"Well, yeah." Harry didn’t stop himself when he saw Louis was already grinning.

"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do," he said. He looked down at his phone. "You were ten minutes late, by the way. Totally unprofessional, as usual. I almost left."

"Blame your best mate, then," Harry said. "Do you not have my number? I thought literally the entire Union had my number. You wouldn't even believe how many texts I have gotten from unknown numbers about, like, typos in my emails and how many guests we have booked for next semester.”

"I must have missed the memo," Louis said. He stood up a little straighter.

Harry pulled his phone out of his pocket and pushed it into Louis’s hand. "Put your number in, then. Can't have you thinking I'd skip out on our weekly bitch sessions."

Louis snorted. “Like you’d ever.”

A few days later when Harry was going through his sent messages he saw that he had sent a single x to Thechairman Ofthepartyoftheright. Louis must have sent it to himself when Harry had given him his phone. Harry didn’t read anything into it. 

###

Harry was a little tipsy when the Chairman of the Advisory Committee pulled him aside to talk to him about his relationship with Louis. He was at a POR debate; what else would anyone expect? He was probably the soberest one in the room, aside from Liam. Well, and Simon Cowell, but the point was that when Simon tapped him on the shoulder he didn’t have any right to cock an eyebrow at how Harry’s smile was just a little bit sloppy. 

"Can I talk to you for a second?" Simon said. "Outside?"

Harry shrugged. He spent not an insignificant amount of time trying to avoid talking to AdComm, that body of Union elders with nebulous authority that mostly seemed good for keeping self-important people feeling like other people thought they were important, too.

“Sure,” Harry said anyway. "Just a sec." He mumbled a farewell to a few of the people he'd said hello to in the past hour, and glanced at Louis, who was regarding the person speaking on the floor with raised eyebrows. He didn't let himself be disappointed that they didn't make eye contact as he followed Simon out of the room. 

"You and Louis Tomlinson are sure getting along better these days," Simon said as he led them to the designated smoking area of the brick courtyard.

Harry shrugged. "He's the Chairman of the POR," he said. "It's, like, his job to be a jerk. Once I realized that, it stopped getting to me so much."

Simon pulled a cigarette seemingly from out of nowhere, lit it, and took a drag. He didn’t offer one to Harry. The smoke coming out of his mouth mixed with their frigid breath in the February air. “If you sleep with him, it's gonna be a shit show,” Simon said.

So o _kay_ , Harry hadn't really been in the closet since he got to university, but it still maybe unnerved him a little when someone he had never had so much as a casual chat with knew that he wanted another guy's dick. Theoretically. Because Harry didn’t want Louis’s dick. Not, like, _actually_ , anyway.

"That--that is so far out of line, as a thing for you to say," Harry said, stumbling backwards a little even though he hadn’t taken a step, "that I am a little embarrassed for you right now.”

Simon regarded him for a minute, then went on. "You're a nice guy, Harry," he said. "So it makes sense that you don't see it. But if you think he's above using his relationship with you to get what he wants, you're wrong."

"You don't know anything about me," Harry said. "Or him, for that matter. Just because you've been around here for a million years or something doesn't mean you know _shit_. He's not going to _cheat on his girlfriend_ with me so that I'll, like--"

"Support him when he runs for Speaker?" Simon said.

Harry blinked. "That's mad. You're _mad_.”

Simon shook his head and looked altogether too unfazed for Harry's comfort as he stamped the cigarette (which he had taken barely two drags from, what the fuck) out on the ground. "You're right about one thing, anyway," he said, and Harry kicked at the ground as he walked away.

###

In the first week of March, the 1DU had what Harry's weekly email referred to as an "evening social event" and what the social co-chairs referred to in their announcement at the Union debate on Tuesday as a "rager."

"We may or may not have convinced someone to lend us the 1DU credit card," one of them said--several people cheered and Harry realized then that that had probably been a horrible mistake--"so you can be sure we'll have enough fuel to last all night."

“Bring your friends," the other social co-chair said. "We'll show 'em there's more to us 1DU kids than meets the eye."

"There isn't, really," Harry muttered to the economics professor who was sitting next to him on stage, looking a little scandalized while waiting to give his guest speech as Liam gaveled repeatedly in order to bring down the buzz of chatter. "It's, um, it's funny because of how tame we really are." 

Of course both of their eyes settled on Louis fucking Tomlinson breaking out a flask as soon as Harry said that. "Harmless socializing," Harry added weakly.

###

It shouldn't have surprised Harry that the rager was the best-attended Union event of the semester thus far, but it did. Surely people had better things to do on a Saturday night than party with people who they spent half their time screaming at?

Apparently they didn't. People who Harry saw at party debates but never at 1DU were there playing with the light dimmer and spilling Bacardi on the Union office’s carpet; people Harry is sure he’s never seen anywhere before (did they even go here?) were cranking up Nicki Minaj and talking about finding a strobe light. Ben Winston had his shirt off and was dancing on the table that had been shoved against the wall. Even LeighAnne showed up. 

“Hi Harry,” she said, sipping from her Solo cup and looking over Harry’s shoulder after he finally caught up with her after fighting the sweaty masses for a quarter of an hour. “We should, uh, really catch up sometime, right?” She patted him on the shoulder as she downed the rest of her drink and turned to the dance floor before Harry had a chance to say anything. 

Harry sighed and watched her dissolve into the crowd of writhing bodies. He was good at parties, usually—people gravitated to him, for some reason, so he almost never ended up awkwardly alone in the middle of a crowd. Here, though, in the office where he’d be expected to chair e-board tomorrow, he had the awkward feeling of a parent who stumbles on his teenage kids drinking out of his liquor cabinet.

He didn’t have much time to wonder when he started feeling like a middle-aged man before someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned.

“Harold!" Louis said, smiling widely. He was the only thing between Harry and the wall and it felt weirdly private, especially when Louis’s eyes flickered down to Harry’s legs. “Look at you with the intact trousers,” Louis said, elbowing Harry in the stomach and almost knocking his bright green drink into him as he did. “Didn’t think you had it in you. ’S—“ Louis was definitely drunk, as he stumbled over the word “—’s spiffy.”

Harry was, in fact, wearing new jeans with no holes in them, and a loose white tee that was a bit less battered than his other ones, but he hadn’t really expected anyone to notice. Much less Louis. But then again, wasn’t Louis always noticing things about him?

"No one's ever called me that before," Harry said. Someone jostled him from behind and he ended up being pushed closer to Louis, having to reach a hand out over Louis’s shoulder to the wall to steady himself. Something flickered in Louis’s eye.

“Lies,” he said. “I call you Harold at least once every few days."

"Spiffy," Harry said. He felt like he was wheezing from laughter but neither of them were laughing. Harry’s hand was still caging Louis against the wall, basically. Harry had only downed the contents of one Solo cup but he felt drunk. “No one's ever called me spiffy."

"Really," Louis said quietly. "Maybe you need better friends, then. Harold."

 _This is what we do now_ , Harry thought to himself, _banter, friendly banter,_ and part of him was sort of ecstatic about that, that he and Louis could be friends who bantered. Another part of him, though, kept trying to put a finger on the retort that was hovering on the outskirts of his consciousness—something, Harry thought, about how he and Louis could be better friends (or better than friends), but Harry couldn't find it, and he realized after a minute that while he was searching for words he had been staring at Louis’s lips. 

Louis had definitely noticed. His lips were pressed together tightly but he didn’t look away.

The silence between them was growing absurdly long, and Louis's gaze was so intense that Harry felt if it went on for another second he might actually do it, might actually kiss the Chairman of the Party of the Right in front of everyone in the 1DU and half of their friends. Harry had been told he had a creepy stare and he didn’t think he was creepy but he knew the face people were talking about when they said that and he was _sure_ that was what he looked like then. Louis wasn't backing away, though, wasn’t making a joke of it even though that’s what Louis always seemed to do with _everything_ , and naturally, just as Harry thought _maybe that means he wants me to_ , someone behind Harry jostled him forward again and he buckled onto Louis awkwardly, and Louis' hands flew to Harry's shoulders.

" _Harrrrry_! I've been looking for you."

He felt the whole length of Louis against him for a single second before Louis took a step away from him and Harry’s eyes settled on the person who’d called out to him: Taylor Swift.

“Have you?” Harry said. He felt like his voice was betraying something, though he wasn’t sure what. He turned his head to look back a little at Louis but he was gone, making his way towards a group of people from his party huddled around the drinks table. He thought that Louis not taking up all of his senses at once might make him feel a little less drunk, but it didn’t.

It took a few minutes of Taylor shouting into his ear about the music selection for Harry to realize that she was hitting on him. He wasn’t sure whether or not he was flattered; most of his attention was on the corner of the room where Louis was whispering something in Eleanor’s ear and one of her arms was slung over his shoulder, reminding him of how drunk they all were and how much he wanted to go to bed. After Taylor retched on his shoes Harry took that as an excuse to leave, walking her back to her dorm and passing her off to her roommates before going back to his own suite and collapsing on the futon, wondering when he had started crushing on straight dudes again.

###

The week after the rager was spring break. Niall went home for the holiday but Harry stayed, staving off loneliness by inviting Liam to come by in the evenings for takeout and FIFA. Harry spent most of his days off holed up in the library writing papers that he knew he wouldn’t have time for at the end of the semester, when 1DU election season was in full swing again. He spent a lot of time convincing himself not to text Louis and ask about how to get onto the roof.

The Sunday at the end of break, as he fiddled with his gavel and waited for e-board to start, Harry was much chattier than usual with his elected officers as he tried to avoid meeting Louis's eyes (and, more importantly, his lips). Once he gaveled the meeting to order, he wasn't sure he'd be able to distract himself from the way that Eleanor kept touching Louis's forearm. Fortunately, a huge argument broke out that proved plenty distraction.

The first item on the agenda was about a schedule conflict. Ferny, who had replaced Harry as VPO, reported that the mayor of New York, who was supposed to have been coming the following week, needed to move the date up to that week instead.

“Obviously we’re supposed to have this libertarian economics professor from UCLA this week,” Ferny reported, typing away furiously on his laptop (Harry had no idea what he was doing but his attention seemed to be fully in the room, so he didn’t say anything about it), “and we’ve already paid for his plane fare and everything, but he’s a much lower priority guest, so clearly we’re bumping him. Instead of having a debate with him we’ll co-sponsor a discussion with him and one of our economics professors—haven’t figured out which, exactly, but several seem like they might be up for it. Then next week we’ll try to have the same one of our professors as a guest, refuting the arguments the original guest was going to put forward, so that way we can still have our trickle-down economics debate even though the guy will be back in California.”

“Well-handled, Ferny,” Harry said. His heart warmed a little when he saw his officers doing good work. “Yes, it would have been nice to have this economist debate with us, but as the mayor of New York City clearly takes precedence, this seems like the best way to keep both of them as guests. The economics department has agreed to officially sponsor the talk, so we just need to take a quick vote to confirm our co-sponsorship. All in favor—“

“Hold on,” Louis said.

Harry made eye contact with Louis for the first time since he had almost kissed him in this very room. He froze.

“I don’t like the way this plan is being railroaded through,” Louis said. He leaned forward onto the table. “Why should we pay for this economist to come visit if he’s not even going to debate us for real?”

Harry stayed frozen, his eyes on Louis. 

“We’ve already paid for him to come,” Ferny said. He was frowning at Louis like he was being deliberately obtuse. Harry supposed that was fair. “We’re not going to have two debates in one week.”

“But has anyone really considered that option?” Louis said. There was silence again for another moment as everyone stared at him. That was the point when Harry really should have said something.

“I don’t think it’s a good precedent to set for us to sponsor non-debate events,” Louis continued. “We’re a debate union, not a discussion section." His eyes flickered to Harry again and for a fraction of a second, he looked--sorry? But then he was blustering on again: "If I wanted to listen to professors talk at me, I’d go to lecture. That’s not what the Union is about.”

“He has a point.” Harry wasn’t sure where the voice came from at first, but after a moment he realized it was Marcel. It was the first time the Federalist Chairman had spoken up at e-board all semester, as far as Harry remembered.

“Thank you, Marcel,” Louis said, sounding absolutely delighted. He looked around the table. Eleanor was staring at him slack-jawed. “So, if we’re all agreed, then—“

“We are _not_ all agreed,” Eleanor snapped. “You can’t just—Ferny’s already worked this whole thing out, you can’t just bluster in with your non-concerns and try to mess that up.”

Harry opened his mouth and then closed it again. On the one hand, Ferny was in Eleanor’s party; it was naturally her duty to defend him. On the other hand, weren’t she and Louis _dating_? There certainly seemed to be something heavy in how Louis snapped back at her.

“Well, _you_ can’t just have your bureaucratic automatons take over every office in the Union and single-handedly try to direct the whole thing,” he said, his eyes narrowing, “unless—oh, wait—“

“What exactly are we insinuating about the officer corps now?” Harry couldn’t remember hearing Niall sound that short with _anyone_.

The floodgates opened after that. Even when Harry looked back on it well after the fact, he could barely think of anything to say about it—he’d just open and shut his mouth like a fish, much like he had for most of the following hour. Eleanor shouted about obstructionism; Louis shouted about how the sovereign authority of the One Debate Union rested in the chairs and chairmen, _not_ the elected officers; Ben Winston went on a diatribe about filibustering; Ferny explained the plan again three times, each time more quickly and with more emphatic hand gesturing, like the problem was that Louis just didn’t understand; Zayn spent a long time explaining the difference between legislative and executive authority; Taylor called everyone in the room idiotic; Niall called the whole concept of her party idiotic; Marcel said it was an interesting discussion; Liam asked Harry in an undertone no less than three times if he wanted to force a vote; each time Louis overheard that and brought up some new complaint, eventually asking if there was any way the Union could be refunded for the professor’s plane fare if e-board didn’t agree to a co-sponsorship.

"This is _bullshit_ ," Taylor said as Ferny gaped wordlessly at Louis after that. "We've been here foran _hour_ now,” (that was no longer than their meetings usually lasted, Harry thought, but she sounded completely outraged), “and I have rehearsal. I'm _leaving_."

"You can't _leave_!" Louis said. "We need your vote." He made eye contact with the Chairman of the Federalist Party, who shrugged agreement. “Marcel and I need you, Taylor, come on.”

"You can appoint a proxy, you know," Liam said. He had remained silent for most of the discussion.

“Are you _serious_?” Zayn snapped, looking at Liam with wide eyes. “You’re trying to _prolong_ this discussion?”

"Like I'd subject any of my Party members to this anyway,” Taylor said. She snapped her phone case closed and stood up. “I’m out.”

"I'll be your proxy," Louis said, patting the table in front of her eagerly. If Harry didn’t feel like snapping his head off he probably would have found it cute. "Let me, I'll do it."

Taylor looked at him, then at the clock on her phone. She shrugged. "Whatever, fine."

There was an immediate commotion.

Eleanor slammed her fist down on the table and looked like she was about to shriek. “Are you—is she— _no_ ,” she said, turning quickly from Taylor to Harry, “you’re not going to let her do that, are you?”

"The Tories and the PoR ganging up on the rest of the Union,” Niall was saying, shaking his head, “there's a thing I never thought I'd see--" (That seemed like a bit of an exaggeration, didn’t it? Harry had never disagreed with Niall about something at e-board before but that felt like something of an exaggeration to him.)

"I'm not sure this is strictly allowed," Liam said loudly. Harry looked around the room, trying to get a read on how people were feeling. He caught Louis’s eye and the Chairman didn't smirk, like he had been for much of the past half hour. Instead, his hard line of his jaw went soft for a moment and he raised his eyebrow like a question. Or a challenge.

"Leave it," Harry muttered. Liam turned and frowned at him. "Just—I want to get this over with,” he said to Liam. He was pretty sure Louis and Eleanor could both hear him.

Liam looked at Harry like he’d grown an extra arm. “All right,” he said, shrugging. Taylor left the table without pushing her chair in, Ben and the Director of Development were whispering to each other, and Eleanor kicked Louis under the table as he crossed his arms and kept smirking. Harry stared down at the table for the rest of the discussion, until Zayn caved (“I don’t even care, let’s just end this”) and e-board voted 4-3 against co-sponsoring the talk with the economics department. Ferny, who had barely said a word through the course of his discussion, most of his focus on whatever was on the screen in front of him, slammed his laptop shut and walked out. Harry would have to apologize to him later, but he was so exhausted he just wanted to nap. 

###

"I can't believe you let me get away with that," was the first thing Louis said when Harry approached him on the library steps that night.

Harry couldn't believe it either, really. Niall had spent most of the hours that had passed since e-board giving him shit about it, giving him no time for his nap. _The PoR just enjoys throwing kinks in plans people have put a lot of work into_ , he’d said, _they’re sadists, Harry. They’re evil. Why would you let Louis fucking Tomlinson get away with something like that?_ Harry hadn’t had an answer.

Louis looked at Harry oddly and Harry suddenly felt like the most obvious twelve-year-old with a crush who ever lived.

"No idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Chairman," he said. He tugged his beanie down over his curls.

Louis was still for a moment, then he shrugged. “Come on,” he said.

This time, Harry counted. There were sixteen stories from the ground floor to the roof of the library. It was warmer than it had been the first time they had come up here, in January; Harry noticed this time that the roof itself was made of concrete with cracks in it, but the view was just as impressive as he remembered.

They took the same positions they had been in before, Harry leaning with both arms on the railing and looking out at the city while Louis sat on the railing facing the other way. Harry waited for Louis to say something since he didn’t trust himself to say anything but _thank you_.

“How was your break?” Louis asked eventually.

“Pretty boring,” Harry said. _I typed out around thirty texts to you that I couldn’t send_. “Got a lot of work done, though.”

“Sounds good.” They were silent for another moment before they both started speaking at once.

“How was—“

“So is—“

Both of them stopped, then laughed. Harry turned away from the view in front of him, leaning his hip against the railing so he was facing Louis. “Go ahead,” he said.

“My break was fine, assuming that’s what you were asking,” Louis said. Do people’s eyes actually twinkle? Harry found himself wondering. Was that a real thing? Louis’s eyes seemed to twinkle. “And I was just going to ask if Taylor was upset.” 

“Taylor?” Harry blinked.

“Yeah,” Louis said, sinking his shoulders down a little. “She seemed like she might be upset."

“About e-board?” Harry said. “I wouldn’t know, I haven't talked to her about it.” Beat. "Don't think I've ever heard you inquire about someone's wellbeing."

Louis rolled his eyes. "I promise it's only for gossip purposes," he said. "Just. I heard you two had, uh, gotten closer, recently." He paused. "Not that you asked for my opinion, but it seems a bit thick to just let that fall apart just because of some 1DU shit."

"Fall apart,” Harry repeated with a frown. "Me and Taylor? When have we ever been together?"

Louis crossed his arms over his chest and rubbed his upper arms like he was cold. “You certainly seemed pretty cozy at the mixer,” he said.

Harry frowned. "We're just friends," he said. "I mean. Not even friends. She threw up on me a little. That's the closest we've ever been. Me and her vomit. I walked her home."

"Oh," Louis said. His gaze was fixed on the other side of the balcony. Harry glanced that direction, but there was nothing there except the door they had emerged from.

"You could, like, tell me,” Louis continued a moment later. “If you actually were with her. I'm not actually that much of a gossip."

Harry knew for a fact that that wasn't true. "I would have," he said.

“Sure.” Louis fiddled his thumbs around his suspenders.

"What about you and Eleanor, then?" Harry said, forcing himself to look away from Louis’s chest. "Thought I might have to separate you two. Everything all right?"

"El's fine," Louis said, then paused. “Well. I think being Chairman is more stressful than she thought it would be, but like. We've been friends forever, so it’s. We're fine."

"Friends," Harry echoed.

Louis nodded, rubbing his arms again. “Better friends than you and Taylor, anyway.” He smiled.

“That’s not hard,” Harry said. He turned his body so that his stance was mirroring Louis, neither of them looking out at the campus spread out beneath them.

"I'm gay, Harry," Louis said, after thirty seconds of Harry saying nothing.

"Oh.” Harry’s fingers grappled to hold onto the railing and he hoped Louis didn’t notice. _Oh_. "I, uh. I didn't know."

"Um, no one really does." Louis scratched his head and turned around to look back out at the campus, moving away from Harry a little in the process. "I mean, friends back home. A few people here. And my family. But no, like... Union people. Other than Eleanor, anyway. And Zayn, I guess, he's figured it out. I don't know, it just seemed complicated."

"That's..." Harry wanted to say he understood, but he didn't. Harry was pretty sure almost half his friends (and more than half of his party) weren’t straight. He didn't, he _couldn't_ understand why Louis would surround himself with people he wouldn't want to share that part of himself with. "I'm sorry, Louis."

"Mr. Chairman," Louis said, with no malice. He kept on looking off at the view. "And don't be _sorry_ , Christ. I just didn't want to let that define me, you know? Back home, basically everyone knew. Even when I didn't tell them. I was the village twink, and everyone knew. I wasn't--I'm _not_ ashamed of being gay," Louis said, turning to look Harry in the eye. "I just wanted to be something else, for a change. Don't be sorry for me. I made a choice." 

Harry had taken the opportunity of Louis' lost attention to survey him carefully. He tried to imagine Louis being bullied, but he just couldn’t. The Louis he knew wouldn’t even let anyone say anything negative about his stupid party in their presence without beating them with their own shoes. (Metaphorically.) The Louis Harry knew was all defensive postures and hard cheekbones and biting wit. He didn't understand how anyone could look at him and think nothing but _twink_. "I won't tell," Harry said. "I'm not actually that much of a gossip either.”

Louis kept looking at him for a minute before he finally smiled. "Now I _know_ that's a lie," he said. "Because otherwise you wouldn't be about to beg me to tell you which two seniors nearly came to blows with an IP freshman during an argument over Catholic theology after you left the rager.”

"Oooh!" Harry said, allowing his face to crack into a huge, dimpled grin. He turned to mirror Louis’s stance again. “Do tell, Louis."

"Mr. Chairman,” Louis said automatically, but his eyes were doing that thing again, the thing that Harry would call twinkling if eyes were things that actually twinkled, which they weren’t. 

"Pretty please, Mr. Chairman?" Harry bumped his shoulder against Louis’s and they were never more than two inches apart for the rest of the hour and a half they stayed on the roof.

###

If Harry had actually run for 1DU president, the first plank of his platform would have been the eradication of the Union Ball. He would have had all mention of the damned tradition wiped from the history books. "As if we don't spend enough of our time standing around in formalwear and making idiots out of ourselves in this organization," he would have said, and he is pretty sure no one would have fought him on it.

Sadly, Nick Grimshaw had been a big fan of the Union Ball. He'd already put down a deposit on a live swing band in January, and when the treasurer told Harry how much money they would lose if they cancelled, even Harry couldn't justify it to himself. Which is how he ended up spending a Saturday morning renting a ZipCar and driving to Party City with the two senior girls who Nick had appointed as social co-chairs.

"What if we got these?" Harry said, holding up a chocolate lollipop shaped like a penis in the bachelorette party section. The seniors looked at each other like they weren't sure if Harry was joking. "As party favors, like. We could get 1DU written on them, I bet." There was no way you could prove that Harry was thinking about how hard Louis would laugh.

"Harry," one of the girls (Roxy or Joanna, Harry kept getting confused) said slowly. "It makes me sort of nervous that you're in charge."

"But I _am_ in charge," Harry said proudly. "So what do you think? Four dozen?"

Joanna-or-maybe-Roxy shook her head.

"Come on, I'm the one with the 1DU credit card," Harry said.

Both girls shook their heads again.

"I'm _president_ ," Harry whined.

"And we like you very much," one of them said. "Because you know when to delegate your authority." She took the lollipop out of his hands and set it back on the shelf gingerly. 

So yeah, the existence of the Ball was not doing much to promote Harry's self-esteem as a leader. Things were made around a million times worse when Nick Grimshaw showed up at e-board the next day and dropped the bombshell.

"I thought you were banned from campus or something?" Harry said, cocking an eyebrow as Nick made his way towards him after the meeting ended and Harry had given out his last-minute instructions to his officer corps. Most everyone else had trickled out already; Liam was digging around for something in his bag, Niall and Zayn were waiting for the two of them to join them for dinner (as was by now customary), and Louis--Louis was standing and chatting with Zayn, which was less customary, but he seemed more interested in the conversation Harry was having.

Nick grinned. "What the university doesn't know won't hurt it," he said. "I just wanted to pop in, see how things're going. See who you've picked as your partner for the President's Waltz."

"You're hilarious," Harry said. "Really. Now that your academic career is dead, you should pursue comedy."

"I meant to ask you about that as well, Harry," Liam said, zippering up his bag. "Have you practiced at all? I'm sure you're nervous, but if you do a little preparation--"

"You're shitting me, right?" Harry said, his stomach dropping in his gut, even though he had a feeling Liam lacked the capacity to do so so effectively.

"Oh- _ho_." Nick's eyebrows raised in glee. "Nobody _told_ you?"

"Told me _what_ ," Harry said, his voice raising a little in alarm. "Told me about _what_?" Niall, Zayn, and Louis were all watching now as Harry felt his face turn red.

"The President's Waltz is an _age-old tradition_ , young Harold," Nick said. "Was quite looking forward to it, myself. You do know how to waltz, don't you?"

Harry barely knew how to walk in a straight line. "Tough luck, mate," Niall said. Harry's eyes automatically went to Louis, whose expression was unreadable. He felt his knees grow weak. 

Nick's arm slung around his shoulder. "Not to worry, pet," he said. "I'll teach you!"

###

Harry didn't mean to spend all of his Sunday evening trying to learn how to waltz with Nick Grimshaw. It just happened. Nick had joined their usual crew for dinner (Louis had excused himself) and afterwards come to Harry and Niall’s suite to give Harry dance lessons. It was easy spending time with Nick. He was flirty, and a good dancer, but Harry wasn’t particularly emotionally invested in what Nick thought of his dancing skills so he was a good person for Harry to step on while Niall laughed and provided the soundtrack

Around fifteen minutes before Harry was supposed to meet Louis, he dragged Nick outside to continue the dance lesson in the plaza in front of the library. Nick hummed an exaggeratedly upbeat melody and Harry’s laughter echoed off the nearby buildings. He managed not to step on Nick’s feet for a whole minute and a half, which was a marked improvement from earlier, when he caught sight of Louis standing awkwardly underneath the streetlight closest to them.

Nick kept humming even as Harry let go of his waist. Without catching Harry’s eye, Louis turned and started walking away from them.

"Fuck, Nick, shut up," Harry said, laughter dying from his lips. “That’s Louis, I’ve gotta—“

“Gossip about the Union, right, you mentioned,” Nick said. He glanced at Louis’s retreating figure. “I’ll catch you around, then.”

“Sure,” Harry said distractedly. He was already stalking off in Louis’s direction. “Oi, Mr. Chairman!" he called. Louis froze. Harry jogged a few seconds to reach him.

"Hey," Louis said, turning halfway to face Harry when he caught up to him. He looked less comfortable than Harry had ever seen him. "I didn't mean to, like, interrupt."

"You weren't," Harry said, frowning as he glanced back up to where Nick was sitting on the library steps, texting. "I was waiting for you."

Louis looked at the ground. "I, uh," he said. "I've actually got a lot of work tonight, so. I really just came to tell you--I don't know, I didn't have anything to say. It sounds like the ball is coming along great." 

Harry flushed. He had been meeting with Louis like this for something like eight weeks now, and he had never once complimented the job Harry was doing.

"Oh," he said. "Thanks, I guess."

"I'll just let you get back, then." Louis was already halfway turned away from him when--

"Louis?" Harry's voice sounded stupidly soft.

Louis turned back around. Harry steeled himself for Louis to snap at him for saying his name or something, because he hadn't felt so far away from him for a long time.

"Yeah?" Louis said. Harry became so light-headed he almost swore.

"This waltz," Harry said. _I know you probably don't want to, also you're kind of in the closet, but please_ , he didn't have the courage to say. "Will you do it with me?"

Louis blinked.

"I know you have," Harry gestured around with his hands, "your Party, and. But." Every word Harry said took the same energy to get out as a full sentence and he just hoped Louis understood.

"My Party is having a pregame," Louis said, as if he'd just remembered.

Harry knew he should, but he couldn't bring himself to apologize for asking just yet. He could see the gears in Louis' mind still turning. His hand was shoved deeply in his pocket. 

"But yeah," Louis said after a minute. "I can do that."

"That's--thank you," Harry said, because he was an idiot, but he smiled widely. "Can I--is it all right if I come by your pregame and get you around 9? The waltz is supposed to be at 9:30." 

"Okay," Louis said so quietly Harry almost didn't hear. He cleared his throat. “I’ll, um. Text you the address. It's at me and Zayn's place."

"Great," Harry said. _Thank you_ , he wanted to say again, _thank you, thank you_. "I'll see you then. Or, I mean, probably before that." Of course he would see him before that. There was an 1DU debate with the former governor of Virginia on Tuesday and Harry always at least stopped by the PoR debate these days.

"Probably." Louis looked back towards the library and Harry’s eyes followed his, to where Nick was still texting on the steps, and when Harry looked back at Louis he was smiling. "See you, Harry."

"See you, Louis," Harry said. Louis didn't say anything or stop grinning before he turned and started walking back in the direction he came. Harry turned back to Nick and resolved to learn how not to crush that boy's feet.

###

In retrospect, Harry realized it was silly to assume that Louis trusted him just because he had come out to him and agreed to dance with him at the ball. That didn’t mean it wasn’t a shock when Harry found out Louis was running for speaker from somebody else.

Liam was sitting with Niall and Harry in their common room, purportedly studying but actually gossiping about Union politics. There were still three weeks to go before elections but they seemed to be the only thing on anyone’s mind.

“I heard Ferny’s considering president,” Liam said as he typed something out on his laptop. “Bit risky, given that he hasn’t even got a full semester of VPO behind him, but he could make it happen.”

“Hey,” Harry said, frowning. He put his phone down after losing a level of Candy Crush for the third time in a row. “Nothing wrong with that.”

Liam looked up from his laptop in confusion before saying, “Oh god Harry, I didn’t mean—“ 

Niall burst out laughing. “He’s not seriously offended, Payne, you overly sincere loser,” he said. Liam pursed his lips before turning his attention back to his computer.

“Anyway, Ferny’s going out for VPC,” Harry said. “He told me. He was thinking about president but after Douglas started hacking for it, his party told him to back down. There’s no way he could beat Douglas and the IP needs to focus its clout on their FLL candidate, anyway.”

“Jade,” Niall said, nodding. He was the only one of them not focused on a screen as Harry started playing Candy Crush again, and Harry loved him for how not awkward he was about it. “Yeah, I don’t know about her. She seems like a nice girl but Perrie was Vice of the PoL, so she’s got loads more debate experience. Dunno if Jade stands a chance, really.”

Harry shrugged. “It comes down to who the Libs endorse, basically,” he said. “I’m not going to make any judgments until I hack with both of them.”

“Look at you, all president-ly and impartial,” Liam said, not looking up but grinning. Niall rolled his eyes.

“The word is _presidential_ , Payner,” he said. “Anyway, what I’m curious about is how they’d work with the next speaker. Perrie clearly favors Louis for it, but I have a feeling Jade would be more likely to go for Katie, with the way her party’s leaning.”

Harry’s thumb slipped and he lost the level again. “What?” he said. “Louis—Tomlinson is running for speaker?” 

Liam snorted. “Yeah, mate,” he said, closing his laptop. “Only since he was born. He was the best FLR we’ve ever had, last fall, not that you’d remember, I guess. Mostly everyone is surprised it’s taken him this long to officially go out for it.” 

“Right,” Harry said slowly. He'd heard people talk about the possibility before, of course--in fact, he'd even assumed himself that Louis would be going out for speaker next term, but... He hadn't said anything about it to Harry. As far as he knew, everyone else who was running for office had come to talk to him about it. Harry was the president. That's just what people _did_ , when they started running for things: talk to Union leaders that they trusted. Harry closed Candy Crush but kept flicking through the screens on his phone without opening any apps. “Of course.”

###

At the 1DU debate on Tuesday, Harry tripped and banged his knee on the podium as he got up to introduce the guest speaker. After turning twenty shades of red and sitting back down, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. 

_Thechairman Ofthepartyoftheright 7:49pm_

_wondering if i should invest in steel-toed dress shoes. you all right?_

The former governor of Virginia was talking about the fossil fuel crisis and the future of alternative energy. Harry looked into the audience and grinned at Louis like he was the most important person in the room.

_Harry Styles 7:52pm_

_been told it looks quite unprofessional to be on one's phone during srs intellectual discussion_

Suddenly feeling like that sounded rude, he added:

_Harry Styles 7:53pm_

_and i promise i'll try, but it wouldn't be your worst idea. ;)_

_Thechairman Ofthepartyoftheright 7:57pm_

_and what is my worst idea, hmmm?_  

A plethora of potential replies popped into Harry's head: _joining your stupid party_ , _running for stupid speaker and not telling me_ , _wearing clothing_. Deciding that that last avenue was the safest, Harry wrote:

_Harry Styles 8:00pm_

_that tie, clashes horribly with the chairman's medal sash_  

_Harry Styles 8:01pm_

_on behalf of non-heterosexual men everywhere i am appalled_

Harry wasn't opposed to texting on stage; he knew that it was an important tool for the Speaker to be in touch with the floor leaders about who wanted to speak next, and he always found that if he let people tell him their meaningless thoughts about the debate while it was happening, they would think of him as a responsive leader. That was part of his job. The insane grin that settled on Harry's face as Louis reacted to his text (jaw dropping, mouth clenching shut as he looked up at Harry and shook his head slightly, clutching at his tie)—well, _that_ might have been pushing at the boundaries of professionalism. 

_Thechairman Ofthepartyoftheright 8:02pm_

_i'll get you for that_  

The way Harry tried to bury his grin in the crook of his elbow--okay, it was _definitely_ unprofessional, but he didn't want to stop. 

###

The 1DU ball officially started at nine o’clock. Most of the parties were hosting pregames that started at eight. Harry figured that it was his job to hop between them; the presidency of the Union was first and foremost about easing the social tensions amongst the parties, after all, as he had told Douglas earlier that day in their hacking meeting. Nevertheless, Harry was too much of a ball of nervous energy the hour before he was supposed to pick Louis up to do much other than sit in the Lib/PoL joint pregame in his and Niall’s common room tapping his feet and changing his shirt every fifteen minutes. 

“It’s going to be fine,” Niall assured him in an undertone before he left the pregame at a quarter to nine (leaving him more than enough time to walk to Louis’s off-campus apartment and back, possibly twice). “I bet he’ll even lead, right?”

Harry bit the inside of his cheek. They hadn’t talked about that. How had they not talked about that? “Thanks,” he said. He tapped his foot again. “I’ll see you there, right? Don’t you dare be late and leave me with no moral support.”

“I’m always your moral support,” Niall said, “our FIFA rivalry notwithstanding.” Harry inhaled deeply. What Niall said was true; when Harry had told Niall he was taking Louis to the ball he had barely even laughed. Mostly that just made Harry wonder why he hadn’t asked Niall to waltz with him. Everyone would have applauded their bromance and he wouldn’t be worrying about sweat stains in his blazer. _Jesus_.

“Go get your boy,” Niall said, slapping Harry on the arse as Harry’s eyes flitted to his bedroom door, wondering if he should change his shirt again. Harry thought he saw Zayn watching them curiously out of the corner of his eye as he mumbled _right, right, ‘m going_ and Niall pushed him out the door.

Harry panicked when he was halfway to Louis’s apartment and turned around to change his shirt again, settling on a deep purple he thought complemented his gray suit. He realized that sweat stains might be an actual problem he should worry about as he half-ran to Louis’s apartment building. It was 9:01 when he ended up outside Louis’s apartment complex, buzzing to be let in, so he didn’t allow himself time to think about it as he walked up the stairs to Louis’s place. Loud music in a language Harry didn’t recognize was obviously playing inside. After just one knock, Louis answered the door.

“Hi,” Harry said. If he thought he had been nervous before, it was nothing compared to what he felt now. Louis looked fucking _fit_ in a sleek black suit with red suspenders and a silver tie. Harry noticed how his trousers hugged his bum perfectly as he stepped out into the hall and pulled the door shut behind him quickly, so that the sounds of the party inside were muffled. He felt strangely emotional about it. 

“Hi,” Louis said, putting a hand up to his hair as if to run his hand through it but then bringing it back down quickly. “You. You look nice.”

“You look _great_ ,” Harry said quickly. His voice dropped almost an octave on the last word and he mentally kicked himself, but Louis looked pleased. 

“Right,” he said. “Uh. Shall we?” He gestured towards the stairs. Harry wondered if there was a reason he didn’t want Harry to talk to anyone at the pregame. 

“Yeah, of course,” Harry said. He turned and started walking down the steps. “Are they ever going to come to the ball?" he asked, glancing back at the door to Louis’s apartment. "Not that I care, just that I'm supposed to."

"Some of them will." Louis shrugged. "Now that they've lost the life of the party, anyway."

"You're not worried about leaving them alone in your flat?"

Louis' brow furrowed. "They're like my family," he said. Right. Harry had spent a lot of time at PoR debates that semester, so much that he could probably actually name the religious affiliation of everyone in Louis’s apartment right now, but he sometimes forgot they were legitimately Louis’s friends. Especially when they gave nostalgic speeches about Fascist Italy.

“It must be nice to have an off-campus place,” Harry said, changing the subject as they walked down Louis’s stoop and started walking back towards campus. "Can't believe Zayn doesn't fight you all the time to use it as a space for the PoL."

"Zayn thinks it's good to keep some distance between the 1DU and his personal life," Louis said cheerfully. "Otherwise he'd--what were his exact words--oh right, 'fucking kill all of you wankers, starting with you, Louis.'"

Harry laughed. His nervousness started to seep away. "Distance. Right."

"Yeah, it's never been a thing I've been very good at," Louis said. "When I'm in something, I'm just all in, you know?"

Harry bit his lip. “I hope you take your time going in, at least,” he said, glancing quickly from Louis’s face to the pavement in front of them.

Louis scoffed. “My timing is _perfect,_ you’ll find.” He hip-checked Harry, who grinned widely down at the sidewalk.

“That’s good,” he said slowly. “Because of, you know, the waltzing.” Louis hummed and they walked on in silence for a moment.

“I realized we didn’t talk about who’s going to lead,” Harry said after a minute, chancing a look back at Louis’s face. He looked pleased. 

“Oh, Harry,” he said with a smirk, “I _always_ lead.” And then he fucking _winked_.

God, Harry was usually a master at this double entendre game, so why was he _blushing_? It had to be Louis’s fucking trousers. Harry inhaled deeply and looked back at their feet. He noticed then the Louis’s shoes were scuffed up a bit, and that ended up being the thing that let him brush his hand against Louis’s without feeling like he was going to faint.

###

The waltz was perfect.

Okay, that might be an exaggeration. Harry did almost trip and fall into a group of IP freshmen at one point. But that was before it actually started in earnest, while he was knocking on a Solo cup with a plastic knife trying to get everyone’s attention. Before Louis had put his _hands_ on him, god.

More people had actually shown up to the ball than Harry was expecting, given that last year he had never ended up going to the ball because the Lib pregame had turned into a Settlers of Catan party and, you know. Priorities. But there were at least fifty people crowded into the dining hall that Harry and the social chairs had spent most of the afternoon decorating with silver tinsel (“it’s what we have left over from the Christmas party,” Joanna had said, “and I have a paper due tonight, so we’re running with it”).

A ring of people Harry knew and for the most part liked surrounded the dance floor that he had created earlier by pushing the dining hall tables aside. Niall, Liam, and Zayn were at one end of the ring, watching Louis and Harry with more interest than was strictly warranted while the band tuned. Nick Grimshaw was on the other side, animatedly informing a group of people gathered around him that they were about to witness a trainwreck.

“Ready?” Louis said, stepping close to Harry, who wasn’t, at all, not for this, but he nodded.

Harry realized as soon as the music started how stupid it was that he had never practiced this _with Louis_. He realized a few bars in, as Louis’s hand guided him so effortlessly through the motions that he felt more graceful than he did walking half the time, how stupid it was that he had ever contemplated, even theoretically, dancing with anyone but Louis. Louis must have taken lessons, or _taught_ lessons, or maybe he was just put on this earth by God to dance because he moved so fluidly that Harry didn’t have to think about anything at all but the way Louis’s hands felt touching him (not manhandling him, like Nick had basically done, not pushing or pulling him, just _touching_ ) and how Louis was basically the perfect height for Harry to kiss, just enough shorter that he’d have to tilt his face up a little.

As the song came to a slow end, Louis dipped Harry back and brought him up again before Harry even registered that it had happened. Someone started a slow clap, and then the entire room was cheering. Harry was blushing so hard he whispered, “I can’t believe you _dipped_ me, you twit,” into Louis’s ear just so he could hide his face for a moment.

“You were asking for it, dipshit,” Louis whispered back.

It wasn’t really funny. Harry giggled into Louis’s shoulder even as the next song started and the rest of the room took to the dance floor beside them.

###

Harry and Louis kept dancing for a few songs after the waltz ended. Harry was not that great at dancing even though Louis was a strong lead, so about halfway through the second song it devolved more or less into shuffling back and forth, but Louis didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he looked positively radiant, beaming at all the people who passed by them on the dance floor but for the most part keeping his eyes on Harry (not to mention one of his hands low on Harry’s waist and the other stupidly warm in his hand, _fuck_ ).

“It’s a good thing you ended up being a lead,” Harry muttered as he rubbed at Louis’s shoulder a little before realizing what he was doing and exhaling slowly. “Clearly I’m more of a follower.”

Louis’s lips pressed together tightly as he smiled. He reached down to Harry’s hand and tugged it up. Harry let himself be spun around once, twice, and fought the urge to laugh as he fell back into step with Louis because even though he was the taller of the two of them by several inches, Louis managed to spin him around perfectly. _I am so fucked_. 

“You’re not such a bad leader,” Louis said, his gaze flicking between Harry and their surroundings. Harry’s eyes dropped to Louis’s lips and he forced himself to drop his arms so he wouldn’t do something he wasn’t sure Louis was ready for in a room full of people. 

“Speaking of,” Harry said, fiddling with the ends of his sleeves, “I should, uh, make the rounds. You know.” He waved towards the room. “Be seen with the right people.”

For a fraction of a second Harry convinced himself that Louis looked disappointed, but if he did, he covered it up quickly. “Of course,” Louis said, putting a hand in one of his pockets. “And I should—my party.” He nodded his head towards a small knot of PoR and PoL members in the corner.

“Yeah.” Harry laughed a little. “But, uh. Thanks for the dance.”

Louis nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Any time.”

Harry glanced over Louis’s shoulder and saw Eleanor and Taylor chatting while Taylor poured something from a flask into their cups of punch. He should go talk to them. He had, like, duties and things. He brought his eyes back to Louis instead.

“Don’t leave without saving another one for me then, yeah?” he said, so quickly he almost didn’t sound like himself.

“Sure,” Louis said again, and Harry didn’t let himself overanalyze the look Louis gave him because now was the time to be thinking about other things. If he brushed Louis’s hip with his hand as he walked past him, that was just, like. Courteous acknowledgement. Right. 

###

If brushing one’s hand over someone’s hip was courteous acknowledgment, what Louis Tomlinson and Nick Grimshaw were doing about half an hour after Harry and Louis had stopped dancing must have counted as third base at least.

Harry had spent most of that time schmoozing with the other e-board officers and people running for office, wandering from one cluster of people to another and fetching punch for no small number of people. He deliberately avoided following Louis out of the corner of his eye the whole time, because that was just creepy. After he had escaped from Taylor and Eleanor a second time, though, he allowed himself to search the room for Louis, figuring he’d find him chatting with PoR people or dumping the contents of his flask into the punch bowl.

Instead, he found him on the dance floor. The swing band had retired for the night, and Marcel had taken over DJ-ing. Apparently the Chairman of the Federalist Party had a taste for Ke$ha, which Harry would not have guessed, but then again, he also wouldn’t have guessed that Louis Tomlinson had a taste for grinding his arse against Nick Grimshaw’s crotch, so. Surprises were in abundance that night.

“Looks like the Chairman is interested in getting on better with the Independent Party this evening,” came a voice from next to Harry. Simon Cowell had somehow materialized next to him. “Not that surprising, all things considered.”

“He’s best friends with the IP Chairman,” Harry said out of the corner of his mouth, not taking his eyes off Louis as he _giggled_ while Nick Grimshaw gripped his hips from behind. “He doesn’t need to suck up to them.”

Simon chortled. “You’ve never been in a contested race,” he said. “The IP is massive. El holds sway over a little more than half of them, true, but Grimshaw’s the key to the other half. The liberal underclassmen idolize him. Even more, I think, now that he’s not actually enrolled. He’s like a martyr figure.” Simon smiled at Harry placidly.

“What party are you in, anyway?” Harry’s eyebrows knitted together. That was something he should really know the answer to.

Simon shrugged. “After four years it doesn’t really matter, does it?” he said. Probably the IP, then, Harry decided.

Nick and Harry had spent four straight hours dancing once, and he was pretty sure Nick’s hand on his waist had never looked that _filthy_. Harry took the smallest possible sip from his drink.

“Louis will need the whole IP, plus the PoL and the Libs, if he wants to stand a chance against Katie Ardsley,” Simon said. “She’s got the rest of the parties on the right locked.” The song changed and Louis turned around to face Nick, whose hand didn’t leave his hip. “But Louis's pretty good at getting what he wants,” Simon concluded. “We’ll see how it goes. You need any more punch?”

“No thanks,” Harry said. He considered throwing the cup in his hand at the dance floor. 

“Suit yourself,” Simon said, and walked away. Louis was whispering something in Nick’s ear. Harry really, really wished that he could pour the contents of Louis’s flask into his punch. 

Nick and Louis broke apart, though. Louis's eyes scanned the room and when he found Harry, he smiled widely. _Louis's pretty good at getting what he wants_ , Harry heard echo in his head, and suddenly Harry felt like the Hawaiian fruit punch in his hand was ridiculously cheap and his deep purple shirt with sweat stains under the arms was disgustingly ostentatious.

“How about that dance, then?” Louis said, mouth pulled into a thin smile as he came next to Harry and put a hand on his elbow gently. Harry jerked away like it stung.

“Not really feeling it,” he said, looking back over to the corner where Simon was now talking to Liam and Marcel. Louis’s hand dropped from his side immediately.

“Right,” he said, “sorry.” Harry took a sip from his punch while still looking obstinately anywhere but at Louis, but Louis didn’t leave.

“Did I do something?” he asked quietly. Harry spun to face him so fast he nearly spilled his drink on him. He wished he did.

“Of _course_ not, _Louis_ ,” Harry said, eyes flashing as he dared Louis to correct him. “What on _earth_ could you have done?”

Louis blinked and looked around to see if anyone was listening. Harry didn’t particularly care. “What’s gotten into you?” Louis said. “Are you drunk?”

“Not exactly, _Lew-is_ ,” Harry said. He downed the last of his (not actually spiked) punch and tossed the cup in the general direction of the trash. He missed. “Just a little pissed.” He laughed at his own joke. He hadn’t had much to drink but anger was making his blood pulse just as hard as gin would.

Louis glanced around them again. “Can we not do this here?” he said in an undertone. Harry rolled his eyes (of fucking _course_ Louis would be concerned about how he looked in front of other people) but followed Louis out of the building and into the courtyard. They ended up near the same bench where Simon had told him not to sleep with Louis, and wasn’t that just perfect fucking irony.

"Why haven't you asked to hack with me yet?" Harry said, crossing his arms as Louis finally turned back around to face him. He fiddled with the cufflinks he’d borrowed from Liam.

Louis blinked several times in succession, squinting at Harry. “What?” he said. “Why on _earth_ would I hack with you?"

“ _Jeez_ ," Harry said, taking a step back. "I mean, I know Speaker candidates aren't, like, _obligated_ to meet with the sitting president, but for some reason I thought you might, like, value my opinion or whatever."

“ _What_ are you—“ Louis shook his head in frustration. “Harry," he said very slowly, like he was talking to someone mentally unstable, "I'm not running for Speaker."

"Katie told me you were," Harry said. "Yesterday." She’d emailed him on Tuesday and they’d spent two hours on Friday afternoon talking about debate theory. Harry had been looking for reasons not to support her the whole time. He balled up his hands into fists as Louis shook his head again.

“Yeah, well,” Louis said, “Katie isn't very bright."

"She said that's why you're running against her." It wasn’t the only negative thing she’d said about Louis. Harry had done his best to be impartial, but had almost broken a pencil in half when she’d suggested Louis was only running because he loved the sound of his own voice. _It’s a lovely voice_ , Harry had thought. Not so much right now. 

"And _I'm_ saying maybe someone should.” Louis kicked at a patch of dried grass on the ground. “But it’s not going to be me."

"I don't get it, then," Harry said. He did the best he could to make his voice not shake. "Why have you been so fucking nice to me?"

" _What_?" Louis looked genuinely baffled by the question; he took a step back and sat on the arm of the bench behind him. “What are you— _what?_ ”

"Katie's in the Tories," Harry said. "You'd need the Left on your side to win. If you’re not trying to, like, curry favor with my party, then why on earth did you—did you start being so nice to me? Just, like, out of bloody _nowhere_ , I can’t believe I didn’t see it.”

"Can you _honestly_ think of _no other reason_?" Louis said. His tone was sharper than Harry had heard it in a long time. “ _Seriously_?”

"Nope," Harry said resolutely, crossing his arms. "I mean, sure, you came to the _fucking ball_ with me, but then you were practically fucking Nick right there on the dance floor, so. Bet you thought that'd be a great way to get the liberals to support you. I mean, that's why you came out to me, right? Worm into people's hearts by playing up the gay." 

"Fuck you," Louis said."That is _not_ what I was doing, and I fucking _trusted_ you with that. _Fuck_ you." When he shouted, he used his whole body, arms thrown back in indignation. Harry felt sick.

"No, fuck _you_ , Louis," Harry shouted back. He was glad that they had left the immediate vicinity of the ball because no matter how drunk the 1DU had gotten at its constituent pregames, there was no way they wouldn’t notice the way Harry’s voice was shaking. ”Fuck you for screwing me around like this, for coming to the bloody _ball_ with me and acting like I was _crazy_ to think that meant you'd want _me_ instead of Nick bloody fucking Grimshaw. You know, I can't even decide what's worse: you using me to get votes, or you fucking around with my head just because you bloody well _can_."

Louis stood up again quickly and closed the distance between himself and Harry in seconds. He grabbed at Harry’s jacket with one hand and Harry thought for a minute he was going to punch him.

"You _are_ a fucking idiot,” Louis hissed. Harry winced. “I’ve _always_ wanted you."

Louis kissed him before Harry had any idea what he was doing but his body responded instinctively, like it had been preparing for this moment for months. He basically had.

###

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, since they both had roommates and Harry had keys to the 1DU office. But on Sunday, while Louis was playing footsie with him under the table and Liam's elbows were unknowingly perched exactly where Harry's bare bum had been fifteen hours earlier, Harry was very, very glad that soon he would never have to sit at this table again.

###

“So,” Harry drawled, voice heavy with sleep Monday morning. He walked his fingers up Louis’s torso, just because he was allowed to. “You really don't want to run for Speaker?"

"Oh my _god_ Harry,” Louis said. He rolled over to get a pillow and hit Harry over the head with it, earning him a _heeeey_ in reprisal. “Have we not been over this?"

Harry wrapped his arms tightly around Louis’s middle to keep him from hitting him again and kissed his jaw. “Yeah, I know, I remember,” Harry said. Of course he did; it had only been around thirty hours ago that they were arguing in the courtyard, but Harry couldn’t help it if it seemed like a distant memory, given that they’d spent almost all of the hours since then (with the exception of e-board) tangled together. Mostly naked. “I just mean--you could win, you know. You're loads better than Katie Ardsley. I could see you up on stage with a gavel.” He kissed the back of Louis’s neck as the other boy stopped struggling against him and just leaned back against his chest. “Kind of hot."

"Seriously?” Louis said. He placed a hand over where Harry’s was splayed on his bare chest. “Is there anything you want to tell me about your and Liam's working relationship, or--" 

Harry laughed. He felt like he had been doing that a lot lately. “Come off it, you know what I mean,” he said. “You know how to work a room. And you fucking hate Katie." 

"I don't _hate_ her," Louis said. "I just..." He scooted up and leaned his head against the headboard. "I don't know. I've been trying to get Zayn to run for ages, this seemed like the time."

Harry laid his head against Louis's bare chest and closed his eyes before answering. "Why wouldn't you tell me that?"

"I thought Niall was considering it." Louis petted at Harry's curls idly. "Didn't want to make you feel awkward."

" _Niall_?" Harry turned his head upwards to fix Louis with a skeptical glance. "Niall _hates_ parliamentary procedure, why on earth would he run?"

Louis shrugged. "People change," he said. Harry shook his head slightly but allowed Louis to return to twirling his fingers through his curls. "I do find it sort of hilarious that you thought I was running for speaker and keeping it a secret from you." 

"Are you making fun of me?" Harry said. He turned his face into Louis's armpit and--that was disgusting, wasn't it, but he really liked the smell of Louis's deodorant. Or maybe just the smell of Louis. Harry squeezed his eyes shut. "I feel like you're making fun of me." 

"Never," Louis said fondly. He put his nose against Harry's scalp and inhaled deeply. Maybe Harry wasn't the only one with a weird smell thing. He relaxed a little. "You're so trusting. Like a kitten. I think it's adorable you'll believe anything AdComm makes up. Makes me want to scratch behind your ears or something."

"Wait-- _what_?" Harry sat up. Louis frowned, and Harry frowned back. "AdComm--was Simon--oh my _god_ , he's the one who--are you _serious_?" Harry pushed at Louis's chest, like 

"Yeah," Louis said. He scooted up so that he was sitting with his spine against the headboard, "yeah, he started claiming a couple weeks ago that I'd hacked with him, to get people to think I was running." 

"Why would he do that, though?" Harry crossed his legs and leaned his head against one hand, the other settling on Louis's knee. "I mean, wouldn't it be obvious after a while that you weren't running?" 

"Yeah, but he could convince them long enough to give Katie a good head start hacking." Louis put his hand over Harry's lightly as he shifted his weight. "He was hoping it'd scare anyone else from running. He likes Katie. Her own party leadership's a mess, he's sort of taken her under his wing." 

"He told me," Harry said, withdrawing his hand so that he wasn't touching Louis for what felt like the first time in a long time. He put his head in his hands and shook his head. "I didn't even--I didn't really believe him but he was the first one who told me you'd be running for speaker. Ages ago." He paused, wrung out his hands, and looked back up at Louis. "He also told me that if I slept with you it would be a shitshow."

Louis nudged Harry's knee with his toe. "Wrong on two fronts, then." He smiled reassuringly, and Harry groaned and hid his face in his hands again.

"I'm sorry I didn't--"

"Don't," Louis said sharply. Harry peeked out from between his fingers. Louis drew his knees up to his chest and lowered his gaze from Harry's. "If you're going to be sorry, then I have to be sorry," he continued, in a lower tone, "and I'm as bad at apologies as you are at politics."

"Heeeyyy." Harry dropped his hands from his face and rocked himself forward to headbutt Louis, who half-grinned.

"Sorry," he said quietly.

Harry settled himself against Louis's side, his head resting on Louis's shoulder and an arm stretched across Louis's chest. "I still think you would've been good as speaker," Harry mumbled into Louis's shoulder.

Louis shrugged as much as he could without displacing Harry's head from his side. Harry relaxed into him a little further. Louis blinked slowly, as Harry was discovering he did when he was being serious. Harry tried not to let his breath get caught in his throat as he watched his eyelids flutter.

“I’m going to be a senior, though, you know?" Louis said after a minute.

As if Harry hadn't spent at least three of the past thirty hours wondering how it was going to affect their relationship when Louis graduated in a year and the other twenty-seven telling himself it was insane to think about that. He nipped at Louis’s shoulder as he continued.

“I’ve spent so much bloody time fucking around in this political comedy of errors we call a debate union,” Louis said, gesturing towards the door, “and I don't regret any of that time, really, but before I graduate and go out into the big bad world, I think I need some time to just be, like, _me_. Not The Secretary-Treasurer, not The Chairman, not The Speaker, just Louis."

Louis looked thoughtfully at the ceiling as he finished his little monologue. Harry nudged his elbow. “Hey,” he said. “That's smart. You’re pretty smart.”

Louis put a hand over his heart and fluttered his eyelashes dramatically. "My boyfriend thinks I'm _smart_!” he said, in his best Southern accent. “Somebody pinch me."

Boyfriend. That was a new word. (Like, okay, they hadn’t spent a single hour apart since the first time they’d kissed, but Harry and Louis were both debaters. They knew how much it mattered how you chose to describe something.)

"I would, love," Harry said, smiling into Louis’s shoulder (and that might be another new word, but for the moment Harry was willing to write it off as just extremely British), "but _my_ boyfriend is too busy making fun of me." 

"Sounds like a funny guy," Louis said, poking Harry's stomach with his elbow. 

"Not even a little.” Harry couldn’t deadpan even if he tried. 

### 

He should have known, is the thing. Harry had been a member of the 1DU for two years, and even before he was on e-board, he knew that the Union had a reputation for destroying people's lives. He had _heard_ things. A few years ago, the chair of the Libs had dropped out after his nudes were leaked in an effort to stymy his presidential run. Last spring's IP elections caucus had landed two people in the hospital. The girl who was president the semester before Harry had taken the term off to work on a farm. The past few months had given him no reason to believe that he would emerge from his term of office with his mind, body, and reputation intact.

It’s just that _Louis_ had been the one driving him mad for most of the term, and so during the three perfect days after the ball filled with kissing and cuddling and sex with the boy Harry had been crushing on for months, he let his guard down. He cursed himself for it later. He should have known that the 1DU wouldn't just let him _have_ that, wouldn't just _let_ him be happy without putting up a fight.

The email to the e-board listserv was anonymous, sent from some throwaway gmail account.

_Subject: Recent events_

_Dearest E-board,_

_I write to you under the guise of anonymity with no small amount of trepidation, but I hope you will realize why I am uncomfortable making my concerns known to you plainly, and not discount what I am about to say due to the way you have received this information._

_This past Saturday evening, at the Union Ball, I became aware of the less-than-professional nature of the relationship between the Union President and the Chairman of the Party of the Right. I do not refer to the President’s Waltz; put plainly, I and a few other Union members witnessed them, shall we say, "canoodling" in the courtyard. While it is anyone’s guess how long their relationship has gone on, I need not point out that regardless of its duration, a secret sexual relationship between two members of the executive board, particularly involving the President, has the potential for disastrous effect on the disinterested execution of Union duties._  

 _Given Mr. Tomlinson’s candidacy for high Union office, not to mention the high stakes of Mr. Styles’s party’s support in that race, I hope you will all consider this matter with the gravity it is due and think hard on what the appropriate response of the executive board ought be._  

_Yours in earnest,_

_A Friend_  

###

Harry turned his phone off and cuddled into a ball at Niall's side on the futon while he waited for the replies to come in. He had barely spent any time with Niall lately, given that he hadn't left Louis's apartment until they'd had to go to class and Louis had insisted Harry go back to his suite to get the books he needed. Niall was a friend, and deserved more of Harry's attention than he'd given him in the past few days. That's the reason he was putting off going back to Louis's place and letting Niall pet his hair. The only reason.

"Who do you think it was?" Niall said. "Who even _knew_ , for god's sake? I only found out because you were snogging in the common room Sunday morning."

"We weren't, like, hiding," Harry said. He pulled his hoody over his head and thumbed at a small mark on his neck absentmindedly. "Just weren't... announcing it, like. Louis figured something like this would happen."

"And you didn't?" 

Harry shrugged as much as he could while still keeping his body hunched over into a ball. "Didn't really think about it." 

"You are the _worst_ politician, Harry, Christ." Niall kissed his forehead. "'s why you've got me. I'm gonna find out who sent it and kick his arse."

"Could be a woman," Harry said. He refreshed his email for the third time in as many minutes. Almost an hour had passed, and still no replies to the thread. He knew people must be trying to get in touch with him--knew, with a lurch of his stomach, that Louis must have seen it, must be trying to reach him--but somehow that felt like a thing that should happen after, like the replies to the listserv needed to happen first. So he would know what they were really dealing with.

The first response came in an hour and fifteen minutes after the initial email. After that, the thread snowballed.

 _From: Eleanor Calder <_ [ _eleanor.calder@y.edu_ ](mailto:eleanor.calder@y.edu) >

 _Assuming that these allegations are true (which I admit seems likely, but I encourage everyone not to jump to conclusions): I agree that this sort of conduct verges on the inappropriate, but I question the extent to which we can call this a ploy for votes. All sorts of personal relationships affect the outcome of elections. While we may question the breach of professional etiquette in this case, I hasten us not to jump to conclusions about backroom conspiracies._  

_EC_

 

 _From: The Chairman <_ [ _ben.winston@y.edu_ ](mailto:ben.winston@y.edu) >

_I'll go farther than the Chairman of the IP and say this is obviously wildly inappropriate behavior. While the hour may be a bit late to start an impeachment process (and God knows the last thing we need this semester is another change in the masthead), I think an official censure from the executive board is called for, to make it clear what a dangerous precedent this sets._

_The Chairman of the Conservative Party_

 

 _From: Niall Horan <_ [ _niall.horan@y.edu_ ](mailto:niall.horan@y.edu) >

_"the hour may be a bit late to start an impeachment process" are you LISTENING to yourselves mates?! the private bloody relationships of e-board members are none of our damn businesses, and as the chair of the party supposedly being manipulated for votes in this scenario, let me make it clear that the liberal party's endorsement in ANY race is for the candidate we feel most capable. anyone who insinuates otherwise is not only being a huge dick to harry, but is giving the middle finger to my entire party, and i can promise my response will be in kind._

 

 _From: Liam Payne <_ [ _liam.payne@y.edu_ ](mailto:liam.payne@y.edu) >

_I understand this is a sensitive topic, but can we try to keep our conversation civil, please?_

 

 _From: Zayn Malik <_ [ _zayn.malik@y.edu_ ](mailto:zayn.malik@y.edu) >

_I'm with Niall; this is ridiculous. The personal lives of e-board members so far from being the prerogative of this listserv that I am more inclined support the censure of the person who sent this email than anyone else._

_Z Malik_

_Eighteenth Chair of the Party of the Left_

 

 _From: The Chairman <_ [ _ben.winston@y.edu_ ](mailto:ben.winston@y.edu) >

_The naiveté of the members of this body continues to shock me._

_The Chairman of the Conservative Party_

 

 _From: Eleanor Calder <_ [ _eleanor.calder@y.edu_ ](mailto:eleanor.calder@y.edu) >

 _I’m a little disappointed with the tone this conversation has taken. I think we can all agree that mistakes have been made, but perhaps this is not the best forum through which to address them?_  

_EC_

 

 _From: Niall Horan <_ [ _niall.horan@y.edu_ ](mailto:niall.horan@y.edu) >

 _To: Harry Styles, <_ [ _harry.styles@y.edu_ ](mailto:harry.styles@y.edu) _> , Zayn Malik <_ [ _zayn.malik@y.edu_ ](mailto:zayn.malik@y.edu) _> , Liam Payne <liam.payne@y.edu>_

_"a little disappointed" I'm a little disappointed we spent a whole semester in e-board with her and not one of us thought to hit her or ben fucking winston over the head with a gavel_

 

The email Harry was really waiting for came in three hours after the first one.

 

 _From: The Chairman <_ [ _louis.tomlinson@y.edu_ ](mailto:louis.tomlinson@y.edu) >

_While I am flattered by the popular demand for my Speakership, I assure you that I have no plans to run. Frankly, the idea of spending any more time than necessary in the company of such crass and unrefined persons as populate this listserv is nauseating to me._

_The Chairman_

 

So he didn’t deny it.

Harry didn’t realize that that was what he had been expecting until it didn’t happen. He kept sipping at his empty mug of tea as he read the email over again three times.

"You should talk to him," Niall said as he read the email over Harry’s shoulder. “Or at least, you know, turn your phone on so you can see the texts he’s sent.”

Harry didn’t turn on his phone, but he put on his shoes. Before he left, he refreshed his email once more.

 

 _From: Taylor Swift <_ [ _taylor.swift@y.edu_ ](mailto:taylor.swift@y.edu) >

 _I don’t understand why anybody gives a shit_  

###

The front door to Louis and Zayn's apartment was always unlocked ("it's not like we have anything worth stealing," Zayn had said a few days ago; "except our virtue," Louis had added with a flutter of his eyelashes; "like I said..."). Harry knocked anyway.

"I'm sorry," Harry said as soon as Louis opened the door. He had left his phone at home; he hadn’t heard anything from Louis since it happened and had no idea how he was feeling but the words were clawing to get out of his throat. Louis stepped back and Harry entered the apartment with hunched shoulders as Louis shut the door behind him. “You got outed,” Harry said. “And that's my fault."

When Harry finally got a good look at Louis, he noticed that his eyes were rimmed with red. Fuck. “Yeah," Louis said, laughing a little. "I got outed.” He leaned against the doorframe of his bedroom. Harry looked around briefly to see if Zayn was home but it didn’t look like it. “Not your fault, though.”

"Is your party giving you shit?" Harry said. It was his fault. He didn’t really want Louis to try to convince him otherwise.

"Not really," Louis said, shrugging. “No one’s that surprised, which. You know. All right. Some of the alumni might kick up a fuss when they hear, but—“ He clenched and unclenched his fists. “It is what it is.”

"I shouldn't have asked you to do the waltz with me," Harry said. He couldn’t stop himself. “This wouldn't have happened. I swear, sometimes I am such an idiot." He sank back against the wall opposite Louis, who frowned and crowded into his space immediately.

"Hey," Louis said, poking his chest and furrowing his eyebrows. "You don't get all the credit for that, all right? I said _yes_ , if you recall.” Harry inhaled heavily. Louis looked like he was doing his best to seem nonchalant. “And if you had asked anyone else I probably would have killed them, so."

"I probably would have asked Niall," Harry said.

Louis bit his lip and shrugged. "Would've been a shame, then," he said. "I like Niall."

Harry’s exhale had a laugh embedded in it. "I've never heard you say you like anybody."

"I like you," Louis said.

Harry put his fist to his forehead and laughed again. “Okay,” he said. He put his hand to Louis’s chest and Louis let out a sound that was almost like a purr. Harry smiled. “Okay,” he repeated. “We’re okay?”

“I hope so,” Louis said, sealing the space between them with a kiss. Harry wondered how on earth he had gotten through most of a semester of Louis’s presence without kissing him, and resolved to look very meanly at every person the thought of whose disapproval had stood in their way.

###

"So yeah, that's why I think we should cut the budget for guests in half and invest in some flavored liqueurs for social events. Oh, and bitters--do you have any idea how many types of bitters there are, Harry? Harry." 

"Sounds brilliant, Noor," Harry said, swiftly bringing his attention back to the IP freshman sitting in front of him. "Yeah, I'm sure you'll make a fine Director of Development."

"I'm running for treasurer," Noor said, raising an eyebrow. "But the sentiment is appreciated." Harry nodded and kept looking over her shoulder, where Louis was regarding a trembling boy sitting across from him with an expression that would probably make Harry cry if he was in the boy's place.

He really, really wanted to be in the boy's place.

"Have you listened to a single thing I've said?" Noor said.

"No," Harry said honestly, finally turning her whole attention back to her. "Sorry. I know there's a week until the election, but I'm already a bit mentally checked out. Sorry. I talked to Douglas and he said that you were going to be great, though, so like. Don't worry?" 

“Thanks,” Noor said. She shook her empty coffee cup in her hand. “So, like, if you don’t really care, can we be done now? I’ve got a final in two hours.”

“Absolutely,” Harry said, nodding fervently. “I mean—feel free to contact me again if I can help you in any way, but don’t let me keep you if you have other things to get to.” 

Noor thanked Harry as she picked up her bag and said she might email him later in the week. She wasn’t three paces away before Harry was pulling out his phone.

_To: Thechairman Ofmyheart_

_got half an hour before next meeting, blow you in the toilet?_  

"I think that kid thought I had an aneurysm.” Louis grinned dopily as he ducked into the bathroom six minutes later. "You're ruining my street creed, Styles. We have got to stop scheduling meetings in the same coffee shop," he said. He moved into Harry’s arms and kissed him quickly on the collarbone.

Harry frowned. "Really?” he said. He ran his hand down Louis’s back and settled it on the dip just above his bum. “‘cause I feel like part of you might be disagreeing with me.” He looked down pointedly and raised an eyebrow.

Louis let out a small almost-gasp as Harry pushed him against the wall. "Grounds for debate," he said weakly, but his eyes lit up and Harry kissed them closed.

###

The last debate of the semester was almost as emotionally exhausting as all the previous ones put together. Ever since the anonymous email (Harry had gotten Josh, the webmaster, to do some digging on the IP address to find out who sent it, but nothing had come of it), Harry had found himself looking out onto the crowd with some skepticism, figuring that someone in the room must have been the one.

The Union, on the other hand, seemed to have warmed to Harry considerably. He received a lot of texts from the friends he had made by visiting the various parties over the course of the semester (and not a few cheeky ones from Louis), saying things like _aha your skeptical face will be sorely missed_ and _you and liam both look 100% done with this line of argument and I am with you_. If it weren’t for his unresolved anger about the e-board listserv, he might have felt rather fond of the organization he had been theoretically spearheading for the last few weeks. 

Mostly, though, he felt like he wanted his boyfriend to be whispering dirty jokes about gavels into his ear instead of waggling his eyebrows at him from across the room. When the debate was over, Harry was one of the first people out of his seat, ready to fight his way through the crowd and out of there before anyone decided they had something really important to talk to him about for two and a half hours.

"Harry?" came a shaky-sounding voice. _Shit._ Katie Ardsley was standing just behind him, picking at a thread on the sleeve of her sweater. “Can I talk to you for a minute?" 

"Sure, Katie,” Harry said, even though Louis was making his way towards the stage ( _to Harry_ , he thought happily), “can you just give me a second?” He turned to tell Louis to go on ahead of him and Harry would find him in a bit. He tried not to sigh too audibly.

"Oh, Mister--Louis,” she said as Louis came to Harry’s side. She sounded surprised. “Actually—yeah, I’d like to talk to you both, if you don’t mind.”

Louis quirked an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, just allowed Katie to pull the both of them into an corner of the debate hall. "I'm sorry," she said. She looked over their shoulders anxiously. “I mean, it's--it's _not my fault_ , I had no idea—I had _no idea_ , honestly, but I am so, so sorry."

Katie breathed deeply a few times. Louis looked impatient. "So, have you poisoned Harry's food or--?" he prompted.

"Ben was the one who sent the email," she said quickly. Then she shook her head. "He told me, like--he was trying to destroy your chance in the speaker's race, Louis. To make sure I would win. I had _no idea,_ I swear, he just--I didn't know until this afternoon. He told me like it was a _joke_." 

Harry’s stomach flipped. He turned to Louis, expecting him to be externalizing the rage Harry felt inside, but Louis had gone taciturn, looking like his mind was working in overdrive. Harry found himself speaking without thinking of the words beforehand. “So he decided to _out_ _Louis_ ,” he spat, “just like, for shits and giggles?"

Louis’s hand found Harry’s shoulder and he almost forgot what he was angry about. Louis fixed him with a Look that made Harry shut up. “Thank you, Katie,” Louis said, not looking away from Harry until he continued, “you don’t have anything to apologize for it, but we appreciate it anyway.”

Harry pressed his lips together tightly to stop himself from grinning at how Louis said _we_. Louis steered Harry out of the room after a few more obligatory words exchanged with Katie, and Harry let himself be led out to the quad.

“I want to destroy him, Louis,” Harry muttered as Louis kept pushing his lower back gently forward, in the direction of the library. “Like, remember how much I wanted to destroy you for the first half of the semester? Oh,” he said suddenly, frowning, “maybe you don’t, but like. _Even more than that_ , I want to destroy him. I want to take his favorite childhood toy and set it on fire in front of his eyes. _Fuck_ Ben Winston, Jesus _Christ_.”

“Harry,” Louis said, shaking his head. They had finally reached the front of the library, and Louis leaned his side against the building. Harry mirrored him automatically. “Harry, I don’t think you should do that.”

“Why _not_?” Harry said, pushing his palm against the cold stone exterior of the library. “He fucking deserves it. All over the speaker’s race, _honestly_ , who gives a shit about that compared to—“

Louis put a hand over Harry’s mouth. Harry slackened immediately, then pouted.

“It was an asshole move,” Louis said. “Ben Winston is an asshole. Whatever. Just.” He dropped his hand from Harry’s face but Harry felt like he wasn’t supposed to say anything anyway. Louis leaned his head against the stone wall. “I’m just kind of happy with the way it turned out, after all,” he said softly. He laced his fingers through Harry’s. “You know?” 

Harry blinked several times, then squeezed Louis’s hand. “I… wow,” he said. He bit back a smile. “Never thought I would see the day when I was ready to get all revenge-y on someone and you would be the one urging restraint.”

Louis snorted. “Yeah, well,” he said, taking a half step closer to Harry. “Nothing bad really happened, and human decency is a thing, I guess.”

“I thought that wasn’t the basis of your philosophy,” Harry teased with a smirk. He pushed some of Louis’s hair behind his ear. Louis leaned into the touch.

“I guess you’re just really persuasive, Harry Styles.”

###

Harry had thought the last e-board meeting of the semester was awkward. And it was, definitely. Liam had tried to pressure Harry into putting a discussion about the email chain on the agenda ("we really should make it clear that we can't tolerate this kind of thing, as an organization"), but. Well. After almost a whole semester as president, Harry had learned that the only thing the office gave him any real control over was the e-board meeting agenda, and this was his final opportunity to take advantage of that. He didn't want to discuss it, so they didn't. Ben Winston looked like he was seething in his seat and Louis was unusually terse (he kept moving to adjourn before they finished the agenda), but the last Rules Comm of the semester proved that it could have been much worse.

It was the day after the last debate and the middle of the last week of class. Given that everyone was busy with finals and the only item on the agenda was certifying the list of 1DU voters (which, miraculously, no one had disputed), the meeting was called in the library cafe.  Harry and Louis were the first people there, as they had been studying in the cafe since that morning when Harry insisted they get out of bed _so we can get some bloody work done because if I have to do this semester over again I'll scream, Lou._ Louis hadn't quite forgiven him by the time the other e-board members started to trickle into the circle of armchairs they had settled themselves down in.

Liam sat directly across the circle from them and smiled weakly without saying anything as the rest of e-board trickled in. Eleanor sat next to Liam and didn't make eye contact with Louis, choosing to play around on her phone instead. Zayn took the seat next to Louis while Niall sat next to Harry. A blond freshman Harry had never met before showed up and said she was proxying for Taylor. Marcel took the last free chair, and when Ben Winston showed up just as Liam was looking for something to bang his gavel on, Louis squeezed Harry's hand.

"Oh, is there no more room?" Louis said with a faux-sweetness that made Harry shiver. "You can take my seat, then, Mr. Chairman."

And Louis climbed into Harry's lap, leaving the seat between Harry and Zayn free.

Harry didn't even get to see Ben's reaction, as Louis settled his arm around Harry's neck and his torso blocked Ben from view, but based on Liam's blush and Niall's wild grin, Harry figured that Louis's obvious plan to make him uncomfortable had worked.

As the speaker was in charge of running Rules Comm, Harry didn't have to do much other than avoid popping a boner as Louis squirmed in his lap, heavy and warm and rubbing circles into Harry's neck with his thumb. He barely listened as Eleanor asked a few clarifying questions about the voter eligibility requirements. He kept his eyes trained on Liam in what he hoped looked like polite interest as Louis shifted in his lap and tapped a rhythm on his thigh with his fingers.

"I move that we certify the list of voters as amended." Harry lost track of what was happening in the meeting until Louis spoke up. 

"Second," Harry said automatically. 

There was a beat of silence. Harry looked around the circle and saw the Tory freshman raising an eyebrow. Niall was cracking up silently next to him. "You're not allowed to second, Harry," Liam said, looking torn between fondness and exasperation. "Only the chairs and chairmen can vote on Rules Comm."

"Right." Harry knew that. He thought he heard a mumble, and then--

"What did you say, Mr. Chairman?" Louis was saying. He turned around far enough that Harry got a glimpse of Ben Winston's skeptical expression. "Didn't catch that."

Ben was looking at Harry like--like he expected better of him, or something. Harry gritted his teeth and squeezed Louis's hip, which led Louis to grin at Ben cockily.

"I seconded," Ben said, looking back at Liam. Louis put his arm back around Harry's neck, still grinning, and obstructed his view again.

The body voted on the motion quickly and Harry congratulated himself for remembering he didn't get to vote. When the list of voters was approved, Eleanor moved to adjourn. As soon as Liam banged the gavel down, Louis took Harry's head in his hands and gave him an exaggerated kiss on the forehead.

"Wish I'd done that at every one of these meetings," he whispered into Harry's ear.

Harry's breath caught and he hummed in response. Louis's dragged his foot against his calf gently and suddenly Harry understood what Louis had been saying earlier, that getting out of bed that morning had been a very bad idea.

A few people looked like they were going to come talk to Harry, but when they saw Louis whispering to him, they changed their minds. Ben was gone before Harry even got a chance to catch his breath, let alone properly glower at him. Liam and Niall wandered off in the direction of the coffee cart (though not before Niall flicked the back of Harry's head and rolled his eyes), leaving only Harry, Louis, and Zayn in the circle of chairs.

"Well-played," Zayn said. Louis stood, turned around, and re-seated himself so that Harry could see Zayn before settling back into his lap. "The homophobe has vacated the premises, though. You can stop now."

"Don't much feel like it," Louis said, taking a chunk of Harry's hair between his fingers. His arse shifted against Harry's crotch and Harry had to blink a few times before he turned to face Zayn.

"Um," Harry said. "Hi."

Zayn raised an eyebrow, but after glancing around, his expression became more serious. "I already said this to Lou," he said, "but I, uh, wanted to say apologize, Harry." Zayn picked at his fingernail for a minute before continuing. "I can only think... like, if I had agreed to run for speaker in the first place? Ben never would have sent that email if he hadn't though Louis was really running...."

Louis hummed, like this was something he'd heard before. "It's fine," Harry said, biting his lip and looking up at Louis, who was looking considerably less pleased with himself. "It's not your fault."

"You should have run, though," Louis said. He placed his hand on Harry's shoulder and squeezed. "Now Katie's going to be speaker and the forces of darkness have basically won. Right, Harry?"

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it and shrugged. 

Zayn rolled his eyes. "We've been over this," he said. "I'm not apologizing for _that_. You're insufferable."

"Aren't _I_ the wronged party here?" Louis crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Zayn pointedly.

"That's _not_ the--" Harry and Zayn both said at the same time. They looked at each other and grinned.

"Not having your favored candidate in office isn't a social injustice," Zayn finished, "it's just what happens sometimes when you're an arse." Harry pursed his lips to keep from smiling any wider as Louis squawked in outrage.

Louis's jaw dropped. " _Slander_ ," he said. "I can't believe my ears!" He looked to Harry as if for support in his accusation. Harry bit his lip, shrugged, and settled a hand on Louis's lower back.

"It's a nice arse?" he said in a low voice. Not low enough for Zayn not to pick up on it, though. He snorted.

"Oh _god_ ," Louis said, putting his face in his hands. "You two--ganging up on me. I don't know how I'm going to put up with the two of you once neither of you are busy with 1DU office. I shudder to think."

Harry shuddered, too, as Louis tugged on one of the curls behind his ears, but he didn't stop thinking about it. Not when Liam and Niall joined them again with a box full of muffins, not when they joked about Harry and Louis being a power couple, not even later when Louis was doing his very best to distract Harry from thinking about anything at all. Harry thought about the next week, when he would finally be freed of all responsibilities related to the 1DU. He thought about the summer, when he and Louis would no longer be The Chairman and The President, but two boys who very much liked kissing each other. And he thought about after that, too: the next year, whether Louis would make space in his dresser for him, whether or not they would talk about What Came After. It was far too soon to say for sure, but Harry felt like whatever they resolved to do, he was in the affirmative.

###

Ballot reading lasted ages, as usual. The custom of Union members writing long, bitter, and often hilarious comments when they cast their votes was one that Harry found endearing in theory, but when the stack of ballots sitting on the table in front of them was all that stood between him and being curled up in Louis’s bed for twelve hours, he found himself rather less endeared.

Liam picked up what must have been the fiftieth stack of ballots that evening. (All right, so Harry had counted them out into stacks of twenty himself and there were only twelve, but Louis looked really fucking good with his lips stained with port drunk out of a clear plastic cup, so sue him for wanting to get them out of there.)

"President," Liam read. "Harry Styles."

A few people in the front laughed. Harry rolled his eyes. _Haha_ , once was more than enough, thanks.

"Speaker, Harry Styles." A few more people joined in the laughter. Harry tried to catch Louis’s eye but he was looking down at his fingers tapping a beat on the desk in front of him.

"VPO, Harry Styles,” Liam read. “VPC, Harry Styles' cute little bum."

Harry sank down in his chair and hid his face on the table as the whole room cheered. For once, it didn't feel like they were jeering at him. He wondered when that had happened.

"Harry Styles, Harry Styles, and for FLR, Harry Styles." Liam turned the paper over and smirked. "To make up for last time. Call me maybe? _Pour le droit_ , Louis William Tomlinson, ninety-third Chairman of the Party of the Right."

More laughter. Some of the Tories cat-called. Harry didn't want to think about how red his face must be to make Louis look that pleased. He picked up an unused ballot sitting on the table, quickly scribbled out, _i hate you,_ and crumpled it up to throw at Louis. Then he thought for a minute, smoothed the paper out, and added three _x_ s, before hitting Louis square in the forehead.

Not all of the PoR members sitting around him looked that happy, but Louis positively beamed.

Eventually they got to the bottom of the stack of ballots, leaving only Liam's and Harry's. As Liam picked up Harry's ballot, he gave Harry a sort of sad grin that made Harry wonder if he might actually miss this. 

"Dear Union," Liam read, 

_This semester has been full of surprises for all of us, and I think I've had more than my fair share._

_It is something of a tradition for the President's ballot to contain words of wisdom for the incoming officers to take to heart, but frankly, I don't feel like I have gained all that much wisdom over the past few months. What I have gained are more than a few white hairs, an appreciation for parliamentary procedure, and some friendships that I hope will last a lifetime. If I have any advice for the next slate of officers, it's this: to never let the ups and downs of Union politics keep you from fully appreciating the company of some of the most brilliant and talented (not to mention attractive) people you will meet in your lives. The One Debate Union is primarily a forum for the exchange of great ideas, but it can also be a place where people from different sides of the political spectrum come together and learn to work together with a full appreciation for their differences, and not just in spite of them._

_Also, don't get caught selling drugs._

_Good night and good luck,_

_Harry Edward Styles_

_(For Now) President of the One Debate Union_

To Harry's surprise, people applauded.

There room remained loud with applause as the officers formally transitioned; Liam looked emotional as he gave the gavel to Katie, who had to stand on her tip-toes to see the hands she was to call on as the motions to thank the previous semester's officers for their hard work rolled in from all the new chairs and chairmen. Harry shook hands with Douglas as he officially became president and muttered, "seriously, don't get caught selling drugs," and he laughed, and Harry laughed, the room was full of congratulations and everyone looked so relieved to be done with this process that they forgot how half the time they hated each other.

Harry didn't notice Louis sneaking up behind him until his arms were snaking around Harry's waist. "Hi," Louis said, standing on his toes to kiss the back of Harry's neck.

Harry didn't even try to suppress his toothy grin. "Hiiiiiii," he said back. He leaned into Louis' touch and Louis's chin nestled onto his shoulder.

"Get a room!" someone shouted out from the IP section, and Harry flipped them off without his smile fading for a second.

"Talk about a forum for the exchange of great ideas," Louis said into Harry's neck. "Do you have to hand over the keys to the Union office yet?" Harry shook his head. "Then let's get out of here." 

Harry pocketed his gavel (he’d ordered a new one for Douglas because he had become pretty fond of the one he’d been using for most of the semester) and grinned. “Seconded,” he said, and Louis flicked him between the eyes before dragging him away.

**Author's Note:**

> it was supposed to be a joke? now it's a twenty-five-thousand-word joke? i hope someone laughs because honestly i'm just crying.  
> tumblr: [thepreviousquestion](http://thepreviousquestion.tumblr.com/)


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